Former Carmelite Monastery of the Holy Spirit and enclosure wall

This group of buildings began as a Roman Catholic orphanage and industrial school in 1871-1872, designed by M E Hadfield and Son. A west wing including a chapel was added in 1884, also by M E Hadfield and Son. The buildings were significantly altered and extended in 1910-1911 by C Hadfield and C M E Hadfield when converted to a Carmelite monastery. The rear north wing, greenhouse and two small square buildings (hermitages) within the enclosed grounds are not included in the listing.

Construction

The buildings are constructed of hammer-dressed gritstone blocks with stone dressings, stone chimneys and slate roofs. The gatehouse has a stone slate roof.

Site and Layout

The monastery stands on the north side of Kirk Edge Road, set back down a private drive and surrounded by open farmland. The plan is approximately L-shaped, with the original orphanage and school building forming a north range and the chapel, nuns' choir and associated rooms forming a west range. A high wall encloses large grounds on the east side of the buildings, clearly demarcating the areas of public access from those reserved for the closed monastic community.

North Range (Former Orphanage and Industrial School)

Exterior

The building is in a plain classical style. The composition consists of a central square-plan three-bay block with basement and three storeys under a hipped, flat-topped roof, set between basement and two-storey wings of four bays with pitched roofs (the west wing partly obscured on the south front by the later west range) and bargeboarded gables. The windows are vertical, originally timber multi-pane horned sashes, though many have been replaced with uPVC frames.

On the south front of the central block, a chamfered plinth band separates the basement from the ground floor, with moulded sill bands between the upper floors and a chamfered eaves band at the top. The central doorway is square-headed with a hood mould in the manner of a 17th-century lintel bearing the relief carving "S JOSEPHI.ORA / PRO NOBIS" and the date 1911 in two small roundels. The door is of plank and batten construction with a multi-pane rectangular overlight. Above this, a plaque depicts a relief of St Joseph holding the infant Jesus in a round-headed niche with the date 1875 in two small roundels. In the centre bays, there is a window with a segmental head at first floor and a straight head at second floor, with a central stone dormer featuring a pediment and three-light mullion window. In the outer bays are pairs of windows with square flush mullions, shaped sills and deep lintels with incised segmental heads. A tall chimney rises above eaves level on the east flank. The north elevation has chamfered outer corners with narrow windows, a sill band at first floor, and a dormer matching that of the south front.

The side wings are two storeys with a basement (concealed by the change in ground level on the west side's south front). The windows have thick dressed stone lintels to front, back and gable ends, with a plain sill band at first floor. On the north side, the third bay of the east wing has stone steps with an iron balustrade oversailing the basement area, a panelled door and multi-pane rectangular overlight. In the angle with the central block is a narrow stone outshot with a lean-to roof. The north side of the west wing also has a doorway with a four-panelled door and overlight, covered by a later timber porch with Gothic windows and iron posts that links at its west end to the gatehouse.

The gatehouse abuts the north-west corner of the original building and was added in 1911 to provide access to the walled north enclosure for the nuns. It has a wide pointed-arch entrance with plank and batten double doors, flanked by buttresses with shaped caps and stone finials rising to each side of a triangular pediment with relief-carved roundel, trefoil and foliage.

Interior

The original plan of the orphanage and school remains legible in the north range, with a central entrance hall leading to an east-west corridor and central staircase to the rear, flanked by two rooms and round-headed archways to corridors along the rear of the side wings. The conversion to a monastery altered the layout in the west wing for the insertion of nuns' cells in the formerly open rooms of the central and east side blocks.

The rooms are very plain, mostly with timber floors and steel-and-timber beamed ceilings. Doors are six-panelled and four-panelled, with multi-pane overlights to the nuns' cells, timber architraves and window shutters. Some chimneybreasts retain fireplaces. The rear right ground-floor room in the central block has red and black diamond-pattern floor tiles and a fireplace with hob grate. The large basement refectory in the east wing has vertical plank wainscoting. The basement in the central block has barrel-vaulted rooms with stone-flagged floors.

The rear central staircase has cantilevered stone steps, a painted metal acanthus leaf newel post and slender square-section metal balusters with a swept mahogany handrail to the first floor. The timber staircase between first and attic floors has shaped newels, stick balusters and handrail. Staircases from the main corridor of the west and east wings (serving first floor and basement) have stone steps, square-section metal balusters and swept mahogany handrails.

West Range (Former Residential Range and Nuns' Choir)

Exterior

The part added in 1884 has an east elevation of seven bays and two storeys, similar in appearance to the original building with coursed hammer-dressed stone walls, first-floor sill band and evenly-spaced windows with thick dressed stone lintels. The ground-floor windows have timber cross frames with leaded glass, while first-floor windows have uPVC frames. In the north bay of the ground floor is a bell hung beneath a small timber and slate-roofed canopy, with an adjacent timber and leaded glass door opening onto the flat roof of a small timber-framed and pebble-dashed extension with two leaded windows set into the frame.

The west pile, added for the extern's (lay sisters') accommodation in 1909-1911, recalls the style of 17th-century vernacular domestic architecture of Yorkshire. It has a two-storey west front with blind basement and a projecting gabled bay at the south end for the staircase, featuring a stone mullion and transom multi-light window. The fourth bay also has a tall mullioned window lighting a secondary stair. The other bays have single windows and pairs of windows with four-over-four pane horned sashes in frames with lintels incised with trefoil heads. At the south end, set back, is a recessed two-storey flat-roofed entrance bay with a single-storey bay to the right. The square-headed doorway has an arched timber door with glazed spandrels, a simple timber post porch and a rectangular leaded and coloured glass overlight. Abutting the north end is a single-storey flat-roofed bay originally serving as the kitchen and common room, and a former coal store set against the west gable of the north range adjacent to the gatehouse added in this period.

Interior

The 1880s part of the west range contained the chapel at ground floor, which was remodelled and subdivided into nuns' choir and ante-choir in the alterations of 1909-1911. The ante-choir in the north bays has a timber gallery with pierced balustrade, reached by a closed-string timber staircase with octagonal newel post with shaped finial, splat balusters and handrail. A similar staircase links the main building to this range at first floor. A central decorative strip of encaustic tiling in the ante-choir continues through the subdividing wall into the nuns' choir where it forms a T-shaped strip. The subdividing wall has two outer six-panelled doors with triangular leaded overlights. At the north end is a timber panelled altar and reredos with side bench seats with high panelled backs. The side walls of the choir have high-backed bench seats. At the south end is the large grille (now glazed) looking into the chapel sanctuary with timber panelled shutters and arched panelling over. To the left is a small panelled doorway into the sanctuary of the chapel. The first floor has a row of five nuns' cells and a larger room with a fireplace, now subdivided, with a grille in the west wall.

The interior of the extern's range added in 1909-1911 has parlours and other rooms arranged around an open court. Features include four-panelled doors, window shutters, herringbone block floors, small fireplaces with cast iron mantelpieces with vertical strips of blue-glazed tiles (some bricked up), a raised stone (painted) column with foliate capital in the entrance vestibule, a piscina in the priest's sacristy, and fixed panelled cupboards in the nuns' sacristy. On the ground floor there are cylindrical timber turns between the priest's and nuns' sacristies and an outer and inner room. The turns are situated within timber and glazed lobbies on the enclosed side. A number of large grilles interconnect first-floor rooms. The two staircases are timber. The principal one off the entrance vestibule is closed-string with shaped newels with finials, shaped balusters and swept handrail. The narrower second staircase is closed-string with similar newel post, plain stick balusters and a ramped handrail.

The Chapel

The chapel is oriented east-west across the south end of the west range and is in the Early English style with gabled ends and gabled and stepped buttresses, with smaller buttresses to the side elevations. The east and west windows are of three stepped lancets with hoodmoulds, and the west door is in a gabled surround with moulded arch leading to a porch between the buttresses. Smaller lancets appear on the side elevations, also with hoodmoulds and in triplets in the upper parts of the south transept (Lady Chapel), which has a circular window with cinquefoil tracery in the south gable.

Abutting the east wall is the mid-20th-century oratory, single storey and gabled with a small east window of three lancets with a transom. Contemporary with this is the cloister in front of the basement of the west range, which has three windows with similar tracery of four and two lights with leaded lights, and a square-headed door at the right-hand end.

Interior

The chapel interior is faced in red bricks in stretcher bond with orange brick and stone dressings. Bands of blue brick diaper-work appear high up, with vertical diaper work framing the east and west windows. The roof has a plastered vault with moulded wall plates and angled timber trusses with tie beams and king posts on vertical shaped posts rising from dropped shaped-stone corbels. The nave floor is of herringbone timber blocks, with diamond-set stone flags in the vestibule. The raised sanctuary and Lady Chapel have red encaustic tile floors, with the sanctuary incorporating green and blue patterns and decorative tiles. The south wall has a piscina. The north side has an aumbry and the door and grille into the nuns' choir. Two internal multi-pane windows are placed high up in this wall. The nave north wall has a doorway from the priest's sacristy and pine pews with fold-down kneelers. At the west end is an arcade of three pointed arches with panelled double doors to the centre and a side doorway to the right-hand recess, both opening into the entrance vestibule, with timber screening for a confessional in the left-hand recess. There is a piscina in the west side wall of the Lady Chapel.

The rectangular stone altar has circular green marble columns to the outer corners. The Gothic stone reredos behind incorporates two small marble columns with a central brass crucifix set in a crocketed stone canopy with finials. A stone lectern also has two marble columns. A white marble statue of the Carmelite nun St Thérèse of Lisieux with roses is set on a high brick plinth. The Lady Chapel has a tracery-carved stone altar and reredos with a painted statue of the Virgin Mary.

The oratory interior is faced in red bricks in stretcher bond with a timber plank floor. The roof consists of braced collar beam trusses with single side purlins, joists and ridge board, boarded to the rear. The Gothic relief-carved timber altar and reredos has a crucifix finial and incorporates a turn.

Enclosure Wall

The grounds to the east of the monastery buildings are enclosed by a high wall of around 12 feet (3.6 metres) in height, constructed of roughly coursed stonework with coping of triangular-shaped stones and ramped southern outer corners. Intermediate buttresses are present, and in places the wall is strengthened by cemented metal straps, with other sections having been rebuilt.