Anglesey Abbey

Details

TL 5262; TL 5362 LODE QUY ROAD (North Side) 9/53; 10/53 Anglesey Abbey

1.12.1951

GV I

Country house incorporating part of a priory of Augustinian Canons. C13 origin, converted to a house C17, enlarged C19 and C20 (part by Sir A Richardson). Limestone and clunch with steeply pitched, tiled roof. Two main ranges forming a T-plan. The range to the North was originally a first floor hall with an undercroft, and detached from the South range. It was probably the Abbots Lodging. The original building has been added to on the North and South. The gable end walls are visible internally. At the left hand of the East wall the surface has been cut back indicating an extension or range on the East side. The walls are of coursed clunch with some Barnack limestone particularly in the lower courses. On the East wall there are two, two-stage buttresses. The upper stage has been rebuilt but the lower stage of clunch and Barnack on a splayed sill is C13. The upper part of the walls has been rebuilt and the steeply pitched, tiled roof is C19 or C20. The West wall is obscured by later building. The lodgings were of three bay plan, and of two storeys and an undercroft. The original entry was on the West side at the North end. The present fenestration is C17 or dates from the restoration in C19 or C20 but there is a two centred arch and the springing for a second arch at ground floor which are C13. The South range is also C13 in origin and of clunch with some Barnack but its original use is uncertain. In the early C17 it was converted to domestic use probably by the Fowkes family, and the present external appearance is generally of a house of that period. The roof is steeply pitched with later end parapets, but early C17 end stacks of clunch and reused Barnack limestone. The shafts set diagonally on the base are all later. Two storeys and attics. Five C20 gabled eaves dormers in style of and replacing five similar dormers. The main elevation is in five bays, each with a five light cross frame casement of clunch or restored in limestone, except for the centre bay which has an early C17 two storey porch. The doorway is in a round headed and double wave moulded arch on a high sill with a renewed, jewelled keyblock at the centre. Above is a reset medieval carving of stone and a similar casement window. Surmounting the porch is a pediment of "C" and "S" scrolls on either side of a late C18 Coadestone sculpture of St George and the Dragon. To the right hand is a two storey canted oriel window with cross-frame casements of clunch. In 1955, a gallery was added to the end of the Abbots lodging or North range. This was designed by Sir Albert Richardson. The interior of the North range or former Abbots lodging contains two features of importance. The first is the undercroft which is in three bays and two aisles with quadripartite rib vaulting with chamfered arches springing from octagonal columns with moulded capitals and hold water bases. At the walls the arches spring from triple lobed corbels. Much of the stonework, including the marble columns, has been renewed. The second feature is on what was formerly the South West external wall. It is part of the raking wall arches to what was the staircase entry to the first floor hall. Only four and a half two centred arches of triple hollow and roll moulding with a continuous roll moulded label survive. The arches spring from corbels which have been badly mutilated. The South range contains little internally even from the 1600 alterations. A doorway to the South porch has a reversed arch with spandrels carved with "PW" and "R" for William Reche, prior from 1515 and probably reset. The fireplaces and surrounds are mostly early C17 and inserted during Lord Fairhaven's ownership. The roof is of c1600 and of staggered, butt purlin construction. The priory was founded in early C13 on the site of a c12 hospital of St Mary. Much of the priory was dismantled after the dissolution but one range was converted to a house in early C17. The house was acquired by Lord Fairhaven in 1926 who added some of the buildings on the West and the Gallery on the North.

R.C.H.M. (North East Cambs.), p74, mon (3) Pevsner: Buildings of England, p291

Listing NGR: TL5302162256

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

49311

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England: Cambridgeshire, (1954), 291

Other
Register of Parks and Gardens of Special Historic Interest in England, Part 5 Cambridgeshire,
An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Cambridgeshire North East, (1972)

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