Syningthwaite Priory Farmhouse

Syningthwaite Priory Farmhouse

A Grade I listed farmhouse comprising a rear wing of 12th-century date with 15th to 16th-century and 19th-century alterations, and an early 19th-century front range. The building is constructed of coursed squared limestone rubble and ashlar, with small red bricks to the east gable, a pantile roof to the rear wing, and grey slates covering the front range.

The structure consists of a 2-storey, 3-bay west front range with a 2-storey, 3-bay service wing projecting at right angles to the rear. The front range features a central 20th-century door with overlight, sash windows with glazing bars and projecting sills throughout, set under flat arches with splayed voussoirs, and end chimney stacks.

The rear wing contains the earliest elements, notably a 12th-century chamfered round-arched doorway between bays 2 and 3, with a 4-panel door flanked by colonnettes bearing weathered capitals. The surround displays a single order with interlaced beaded lozenges infilled with flower motifs overlying a roll moulding, and the hoodmould has finely carved beast-head stops. Remains of 2 arches of a blind arcade are built into the walling to the right. Bay 1 contains an inserted board door with wooden lintel, and an inserted 12-pane side-sliding sash positioned between the entrances. Bay 3 has a tripartite sash with glazing bars set under a flat arch of splayed voussoirs. At first-floor level, bay 1 features a 12-pane window inserted into the blocking of a round-arched loop window. Bays 2 and 3 contain hollow-moulded mullioned windows—bay 2 with 3 Tudor-arched lights under a square hoodmould, and bay 3 with a similar 4-light arrangement. Remains of 2 further blocked loop windows are visible centre and right. A string course marks mid-first-floor window height to left and right, and a change in stone coursing indicates different construction in bay 1.

The south face of the rear wing contains a half-glazed 4-panel door to the left of centre, flanked by a small blocked window to the left and an inserted long 8-pane window to the right. A large external chimney stack at the far left has a corner knocked out to allow light to a first-floor room of the front range; above eaves level it is rendered, with a brick top and single pot. A shallow external stack to the right of centre is roofed over at eaves level, with a bricked-up wood-mullioned window at ground-floor level. A fire window of 6 flattened 4-centred arched lights with hollow-moulded mullions and returned hoodmould is positioned to the right, with a similar window above. A wooden mullion replaced the stone at ground-floor level, and the third and sixth lights (ground floor) and first and fourth lights (first floor) are blocked. A buttress with remains of a first-floor string course stands to the right again. The stonework throughout this wall shows signs of extensive alteration, with the finest masonry between the mullioned windows.

The east gable is poorly built of rubble stonework with a central external stack. A blocked rectangular opening is present at first-floor level to the left. The gable apex is of brick, while the upper portion of the stack is banded and built of ashlar. A brick lean-to is not included in the listing.

Internally, the ground-floor room in bay 1 is lit by 3 lights of the south mullioned window and contains a large open fireplace in the gable wall, whose jambs and voussoirs were cut back when a brick blacksmith's hearth was inserted. A narrow deeply chamfered pointed-arched doorway (blocked) is to the left. A deep ovolo and cavetto-moulded cross-beamed ceiling extends beyond the rubble-built partition wall between bays 1 and 2. This wall is built against the blocked third light of the south window and contains, low down, a row of small recesses with lintels of reused moulded timbers.

Bay 2 contains the 12th-century doorway with elaborate inner mouldings, which opens into a cross passage with a steep 19th-century stair at the south end. To the left are 2 doors: the first into a larder with a framed ceiling continued from bay 1, and the second into a 19th-century kitchen (underceiled) with an iron range in a sawn stone fireplace surround against the south wall, served by the blocked-off external stack. Two pumps in the south-east corner (for hard and soft water) bear the date 'A M 1874' on the lead spout plate, with a stone sink positioned between them. A doorway on the right of the cross passage leads to the kitchen with access to the stairhall of the 19th-century house, where 2 substantial plain cross beams are visible.

The first floor of bays 1 and 2 is reached by a step ladder from the blacksmith's workshop. The room above contains a blocked fireplace in the gable wall and remains of moulded string courses on the north wall at floor level and impost level; one string rises in an arch over the bay 1 blocked loop window. A finely moulded flattened 4-centred arch frames a blocked fireplace on the south wall, with its right jamb concealed by an inserted partition wall on the line of the ground-floor cross-passage left-hand wall. A timber-framed partition of close studs with lath and plaster panels divides the large first-floor room, with a boarded-up 4-panel door at the south end and a wide plank door at the north. A second timber-framed partition (partly destroyed) at right angles divided a small south-east room from a corridor on the south side.

Bay 3's steep stairs lead to a narrow room lit by the 2 inner lights of the north mullioned windows. This narrow room has no access to the west bedroom, which is reached from the 19th-century house.

The roof structure over bay 1 comprises a tie beam supporting principal rafters linked by a collar.

Syningthwaite stands on the site of the Cistercian convent of St Mary, founded around 1160 by Bertram Haget and suppressed in 1535 following heavy debt in the early 16th century. At the Dissolution there were 9 nuns, the prioress, 8 servants, and other labourers. The priory site is enclosed by a moat and includes a Chapel Garth. The survival of part of an original structure on the site is exceptional; the high blocked loops and elaborate doorway suggest use as an open hall, possibly the Prioress' Lodging or a refectory.