Abbey Farmhouse And Farm Gate And Stile To North West Corner

Abbey Farmhouse and Farm Gate and Stile to North West Corner

A detached house incorporating the gateway of a medieval priory, built in the 16th, 17th and 19th centuries. The building is constructed in ham stone ashlar with stone slate roofs behind castellated parapets and coped gables, and has stone slab chimney stacks.

The south elevation is two storeys high across seven bays, with a two-storey, two-bay 19th-century addition to the west. The elevation features a plinth, eaves course, parapets, angled corner and bay buttresses. Bay 1 has three-light hollow-chamfered mullioned windows without labels. Bays 2 and 4 represent the medieval gateway structure: bay 2 contains an octagonal stair turret with an entrance door and three two-light mullioned windows with four-centre arched lights and flat heads under labels on the south-east face, the turret rising higher than the surrounding work; bay 4 is similar but lower, with two matching windows and a doorway in the south face. Between them stands the tall four-centre arched gateway with three jamb shafts. Above the gateway is a one-plus-four-plus-one light oriel window with four-centre arched lights, a moulded corbel, and battlements angled to the bay, with a device on the central merlon featuring a bishop's mitre and a block sundial mounted above it. Bands of quatrefoil panelling flank the oriel both above and below. Bays 5, 6 and 7 have hollow-chamfered mullioned and transomed windows, three-light below and two-light above, all with labels. Bay 6 is wider and features a moulded four-centre arched doorway with incised spandrels and a square-stopped label. The merlons to bays 5, 6 and 7 carry a variety of carved panels. The 19th-century western extension sits at a lower level with a double Roman clay tiled roof and two-light mullioned windows.

The east elevation is plain; the projecting chimney stack here has been stripped of its chimneys. The north elevation is simpler, with plinth, end buttresses, eaves course and battlemented parapets. Bays 1, 2 and 3 have two-light mullioned and transomed windows above; the lower bay 2 has an off-centre two-light chamfer-mullioned window with a label, and lower bay 3 has an ovolo-mould mullioned window, also with a label. Projections between bays 1/2 and to the right of bay 3 accommodate chimney stacks, the former with offsets; these chimneys are probably 20th-century additions. The main gateway on this side matches the south side but lacks the stair turrets, instead having a full-height buttress to the left and a lean-to projection to the right, possibly housing another stair, with a stepped stone roof and two small windows. Upper bay 7 has a two-light mullioned window without a label. The western extension has a mullioned window to upper bay 1 and steel windows to bay 2, with a lean-to single-storey building across the front featuring a 19th-century Gothic style door. A projection with a stepped gable stands at the west end, against which sits a farm gateway with single stone gateposts and a step-over stile to the north.

The interior was not observed during recording.

The gateway bears the initials T.C., for Thomas Chard, prior from 1514 to 1532, indicating it was one of the last buildings constructed at this Cluniac priory before the Dissolution. In 1539 the property was leased as a farmhouse, forming part of the landholding of the Phelips family of Montacute House. By 1633 it was recorded as "almost desolate". Some years later it became a residence, but by 1782 it had been revitalised as a working farm, retaining its association with the Phelips estate until 1918.