Priory Remains (Now Part of the New School) And Attached Buildings

Details

KINGS LANGLEY LANGLEY HILL TL 00 SE (West side) 7/159 Priory Remains (now part 22.10.52 of The New School) and attached buildings

- II*

Buildings and walls of former Dominican Friary with attached buildings. C14 (Friary founded by Edward II c.1308), C18 extensions to N range, extensions to W range after c.1910 for the former Priory School. Now all in domestic use with a chapel on the 1st floor of W range. W range and wall extending to S of flint with stone dressings. N range of plastered flint with stone dressings to lower floor but timber framed jettied upper floor with white plastered infill panels on N side. Steep old red tile roofs. Red brick C18 rebuilt E front and S extension of N range and 2 timber framed dark weatherboarded extensions with tiled roofs and bell turret at its W end linking to W range. SE extension of W range roughcast with stone mullioned windows and red tile roof. NE extension to W range roughcast with jetty and hipped tiled roof. The c.1910 extensions on S side of N range have a formerly open 3-bay gallery of timber with alpine style cusped vertical boards as balustrade over a timber framed ground floor with 3 cross-windows below a continuously glazed band, with a red brick base and brick panels between windows. An L-shaped group generally of 2 storeys with later buildings linking 2 separate medieval buildings. (1) A long narrow building in the W range formerly called King John's Bakehouse with evidence for early doors or windows on all sides but possibly having a range formerly running eastwards from S end of its E side. A wall divides the building near the middle and the ground floor of the N part is arcaded on the W with 3 large depressed C14 arches with plain splays dying against the sides of buttresses (C20 cusped stone tracery inserted). There is a diagonal buttress at NW corner but a pair of corner buttresses at SW. Since the survey for VCH in 1908 blocked windows have been opened and some matching windows inserted on W 1st floor over the 1st and 2nd arches from the N. These light the chapel with limewashed flint walls and 3-bay crown-post roof with chamfered cambered tie-beams, chamfered cornice along walls, chamfered square crown-posts with heavy curved braces to collar purlin. Same roof continues over S half of building. (2) A long narrow building in N range called The Gatehouse with a large blocked stone archway, continuously moulded, off centre in the masonry of the tall lower storey of the N side. A parallel thick wall is pierced by the doorway between parlour and study in the C18 house formed at the E end of this range. The timber framed 1st floor jettied on bullnosed joists on the N may have also been jettied on the S. Large panelling with curved tension bracing and flush mullioned leaded windows. Interior has arched braces to tie-beams of crown-post roof with braces to collar purlin. C18 house has asymmetrical E front 2 storeys, 2 windows and heavy framed boarded door in middle. Tall 2-light casement windows. Large external gable chimney. Good panelled early C18 rooms on ground floor. Medieval framing exposed inside. Stone quoins at NE angle. The land surrounding the building is a Scheduled Ancient Monument. (VCH(1908)238-40: RCHM(1911)134 no.2: Pevsner(1977)217).

Listing NGR: TL0647702700

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

157690

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Doubleday, AH, The Victoria History of the County of Hertford, (1908), 238-40
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire, (1977), 217

Other
Inventory of the Historical Monuments of Hertfordshire, (1910)

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