The Priory, Or Parsonage Farmhouse

THE PRIORY, OR PARSONAGE FARMHOUSE

Originally the College Buildings of the Beauchamp Chantry, now a private house. The building dates from the 14th century onwards and is constructed of roughly cut and squared ham stone with ashlar dressings. The roofs are Welsh slate laid over stone slate base courses, finished with costly coped gables and stone slab chimney stacks. The plan is L-shaped and mostly two storeys in height.

The east front facing the road is largely 17th-century work, arranged in 4+4+1 bays. The southern section has a lower roof, with a blank end gable to bay one, followed by windows mostly featuring ovolo-mould mullions in wave-mould recesses under separate labels. Bay two has a two-light lower window, bay three a three-light lower window, and bay four has both a three-light upper window set into a coped gable and a two-light upper chamfer-mullioned window without label. The central unit is taller and contains mostly ovolo-mould mullioned windows in wave-mould recesses, some with hands rather than labels: a four-light upper bay one, three-light upper bays three and four, one-light to upper bay two and lower bay three, and a single-light lower bay four. A three-light hollow-chamfered mullioned window sits in a chamfered recess to lower bay one. The final north bay has a lower roof, with a three-light ovolo-mould mullioned window above (without label) and a blocked window below. All windows contain rectangular-leaded panes with some iron-framed opening lights. This elevation features buttresses to the left of bay one and right of bays two and four in the centre block. To lower bay two in the centre block is an ovolo-moulded cambered-arched doorway in a wave-mould rectangular recess with incised spandrels; the opening is now blocked with a stall three-light window. A bell turret of unusual detail appears on the end north gable, with stall side openings in the rectangular turret and a cantilevered cover on the south side.

The north elevation probably dates to around 1444, prompted by Bishop Beakynton. It comprises five bays, of which bays one and three project and are gabled. Bay one has a three-light ovolo-mould mullioned window below with a complete label, above a trefoil cusped light in a rectangular recess with an ogee recess in the gable and a pointed arch doorway in return. Lower bay two has a two-light ovolo-mould window with label. The building thereafter becomes tall single-storey, with a projecting porch having a parvise over to bay three, featuring angled corner buttresses, a moulded pointed arched doorway and a trefoil-cusped light in a rectangular recess above. Bay four contains a six-light hollow-chamfered mullioned window with label and four-centre arched lights with incised spandrels, above a shallow five-light window with ovolo-mould mullions (no label, the centre light being blocked). Buttresses sit between bays four and five, followed by a three-light ovolo-mould window to lower bay five. The last three bays have stone slate roofs set slightly lower than the main block.

Internally, the north bay with the bell-turret contained the former chapel. The west wing comprises a single-storey open hall that is unplastered with mostly an earth floor. It has arch-braced collar-truss roof trusses with double purlins and arched windbraces. A blocked cambered-arched fireplace is set in the south wall, and a gallery overlies a through passage at the east end. An extension at the south-west corner contains ovolo-mould windows, a doorway and fireplace, with an ogee-arched niche in the east wall, which may represent the priest's parlour. Traces of a jointed cruck truss remain at the east end. The remainder of the house was not inspected, but reports note a surviving piscina in the upper chapel wing, panelling with initials TS 1585 (for Thomas Strode, who converted some of the former service rooms into living quarters), and evidence that the three south bays represent part of the medieval priest's kitchen, originally detached from the main house. This surviving portion of the college appears to be the Provost's Lodging; before 1304 it may have served as the rector's house. After 1518 it became a farm, which it remained until around 1960. Major restorations were carried out in 1967, and the house is now the property of the National Trust. It is a Scheduled Ancient Monument (Somerset County No 196).