Syningthwaite Priory Farmhouse

Details

SE 44 NE BILTON IN AINSTY RUDGATE (east side; off)

8/7 Syningthwaite Priory Farmhouse 2.9.52

- I

Farmhouse. Rear wing of C12 with C15-C16 and C19 alterations. Early C19 front range. Coursed squared limestone rubble and ashlar; small red bricks to east gable, pantile roof to rear, grey slates to front range. A 2- storey, 3-bay west front range with 2-storey, 3-bay service wing projecting at right angles to rear. Front range: central C20 door with overlight; sashes with glazing bars, projecting sills and flat arches with splayed voussoirs throughout; end stacks. Rear wing: C12 chamfered round-arched doorway between bays 2 and 3; 4-panel door, flanking colonnettes with weathered capitals; single order with interlaced beaded lozenges infilled with flower motifs overlying a roll moulding. The hoodmould has finely- carved beast-head stops. Remains of 2 arches of a blind arcade built into the walling to right. Inserted board door with wooden lintel to bay 1; inserted 12-pane side-sliding sash between the entrances; tripartite sash with glazing bars under flat arch of splayed voussoirs, bay 3. First floor, bay 1: 12-pane window inserted into the blocking of a round-arched loop window; bay 2: hollow-moulded mullioned window with 3 Tudor-arched lights under square hoodmould; similar 4-light window bay 3. Remains of 2 further blocked loops centre and right; a string course at mid first-floor window height to left and right; change in the stone coursing indicates a different build to bay 1. Rear wing, south face: half-glazed 4-panel door to left of centre, flanked by a small blocked window left and an inserted long 8-pane window to right. Large external stack far left, a corner knocked out to allow light to a first-floor room of the front range; the stack rendered above, with brick top and one pot. A shallow external stack to right of centre; roofed over at eaves level, a bricked-up wood-mullioned window at ground-floor level. A fire window of 6 flattened 4-centred arched lights with hollow-moulded mullions below returned hoodmould to right; a similar window above. A wooden mullion replaced the stone on the ground floor; 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 to right again. Stonework shows signs of extensive alteration to this wall; the walling between the mullioned windows being finest. East gable: poorly built rubble stonework; central external stack; blocked rectangular opening to first floor, left; the apex of the gable is of brick; the upper part of the stack is banded and built of ashlar. Brick lean-to not included in the listing. Interior: bay 1: the end room is lit by 3 lights of the south mullioned window; large open fireplace in gable wall, the jambs and voussoirs cut back when a brick blacksmith's hearth was built into it; a narrow deeply-chamfered pointed-arched doorway (blocked) to left. Deep ovolo and cavetto-moulded cross-beamed ceiling which 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, the lintels of reused moulded timbers. Interior, bay 2: the C12 doorway with elaborate inner mouldings opens into a cross passage with steep C19 stair at the south end. To the left are 2 doors, the first into a larder (with framed ceiling continued from bay 1); the second into a C19 kitchen (underceiled) with iron range in sawn stone fireplace surround against the south wall, served by the blocked-off external stack. 2 pumps in the south-east corner (for hard and soft water) have the date, 'A M 1874' on the lead spout plate; there is a stone sink between them. A doorway on the right of the cross passage leads into the kitchen, with access to the stairhall of the C19 house; there are 2 substantial plain cross beams. First floor, bays 1 and 2: reached by a step ladder from the blacksmith's workshop; the room above has a blocked fireplace in the gable wall and the remains of moulded string courses on the north wall close to floor level and at impost level, one string rising in an arch over the bay 1 blocked loop window. There is a finely moulded flattened 4-centred arch to a blocked fireplace on the south wall, the right jamb concealed by an inserted partition wall on the line of the ground-floor cross-passage left- hand wall. This large first-floor room is divided by a timber-framed partition composed of close studs with lath and plaster panels; 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. First floor, bay 3: the steep stairs in the cross passage lead to a narrow room lit by the 2 inner lights of the north mullioned windows. There is no access from this narrow room to the west bedroom which is reached from the C19 house. Roof structure: one truss over bay 1 is composed of a tie beam supporting principal rafters linked by a collar. Syningthwaite is the site of the Cistercian convent of St Mary, founded c1160 by Bertram Haget and suppressed in 1535, having been heavily in debt in the early C16. 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. Victoria County History of the County of York, Vol III, pp 176-178. M Wood, The English Medieval House, 1965, p 4.

Listing NGR: SE4615448686

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

331708

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Wood, E, The English Medieval House, (1965), 4
Page, W, The Victoria History of the County of York, (1913), 176-178

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