Wilmington Priory

WILMINGTON THE STREET 1. 5208 (west side) TQ 5404 44/172 30.8.66 Wilmington Priory

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1. The property of the Sussex Archaeological Trust. This priory was an offshoot of the Benedictine Abbey of Grestain in Normandy which was founded about 1200 as a sort of grange or manorhouse for the supervision of the Abbey's English estates. It was suppressed with all the alien houses in 1414. The present L-shaped house is a principally C14 building incorporating some C13 work, the whole altered and adapted in the C18. Two storeys. Five windows. Faced with flints and stone rubble with red brick window dressings, the south wing cemented with an angle buttress. Hipped tiled roof. Sash windows with glazing bars intact. Doorway with flat hood on brackets. The west end of the ground floor was the porch. This has C14 stone quadripartite vaulting and a C13 stone pointed north doorway. To the south-west of the house are the ruins of the C14 Upper Hall of ashlar, flints and some brick consisting of 2 octagonal turrets with a wall between having a large window of 3 tiers of 3 lights with stone mullions and transoms. To the north of the house are further ruins, beneath which is a C14 vaulted undercroft. AM.

Listing NGR: TQ5444604231