Clare Priory
Clare Priory, Clare
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- I
- List Entry Number:
- 1376670
- Date first listed:
- 19-Dec-1961
- List Entry Name:
- Clare Priory
- Statutory Address:
- Clare Priory, Clare
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2005-08-27
- Reference:
- IOE01/14817/23
- Rights:
- © Mr Neville Broadbent. Source: Historic England Archive
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- I
- List Entry Number:
- 1376670
- Date first listed:
- 19-Dec-1961
- List Entry Name:
- Clare Priory
- Statutory Address 1:
- Clare Priory, Clare
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- Clare Priory, Clare
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- County:
- Suffolk
- District:
- West Suffolk (District Authority)
- Parish:
- Clare
- National Grid Reference:
- TL7694745010
Details
This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 10 October 2023 to reformat the text to current standards
TL 74 NE
18/127
TL 74 SE
116/127
CLARE
Clare Priory
19.12.61.
I
Clare Priory was founded in 1248 by Richard de Clare Earl of Clare, Gloucester and Hereford, as a Friary for the Friars Eremites of St Augustine and a cell to the Abbey of Bec in Normandy. It was reconstituted by Edward II in 1326 as a cell to St Peter's Westminster, converted into a college in 1490 by Edmund, Earl of March and made into a dwelling house by Sir Thomas Barnardiston in 1604 (This is recorded by initials and the date carved on a panel of the upstairs panelled room).
The house is timber-framed and plastered with a C14 stone font to the west, with heavy buttresses and a C14 doorway, pointed arched with an old door and an ogee-headed wicket inset. Two storeys and attics. The windows are multi-light, some mullioned and transomed, some mullioned, with arched lights, with leaded lights. The east front has gabled wings at the north and south ends, with three smaller gabled wings between them. The windows are mainly three-light casements with segmental arched heads and leaded lights. Some mullioned and transomed windows, with leaded lights. Roof tiled, with four large gabled dormers with five-light casement windows with leaded lights on the west front, and a number of octagonal shafted chimney stacks.
At the back entrance is an early traceried window with an old door and inside a groin vaulted ceiling (being part of the original cloisters). There is a fine C17 panelled room with an arcaded overmantle. In the C18 and C19 the priory was owned by the Barker family whose arms, in stained glass, is set in one of the mullioned and transomed windows. The hall has fine late C15 carved ceiling beams and there is part of a C14 staircase. At the rear, to the southwest of the priory there is a good C18 room built into the old priory walls. It has stone dressed mullioned and transomed windows with leaded lights. The roof is ogee shaped, tiled, with a ball finial.
Listing NGR: TL7694745010
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 282925
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale. This copy shows the entry on 27-Jun-2026 at 23:36:17.
Download a full scale map (PDF)End of official list entry
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