Priory House, Dunstable, Central Bedfordshire

Summary

A multi-phase building originating as a high-status secular medieval structure likely to be associated with Dunstable Priory. Its earliest fabric dates to the C13 and C15, with major building phases as a domestic structure in the C18 and C19.

Description

MATERIALS: the medieval undercroft uses upper and middle chalk for the vault webs (with later replacements in Totternhoe stone), while the ribs and responds were made of Totternhoe stone. Limited examples oolitic limestone and (possibly) Caen stone have also been identified in the ribs and responds. The west elevation is walled in rendered Totternhoe stone, and the east elevation is faced in header-bond brickwork. The roofs are covered in Welsh slate.

PLAN: the building's plan reflects its long history of alteration and does not conform to a standard typology.

EXTERIOR: the building is two-storeys with attics, cellars and extensions and stands parallel to High Street South with Priory Gardens to the east.

The rendered west elevation, facing onto the High Street, is seven bays wide. The principal historic block occupies four bays and is two storeys high with a mansard roof that has two small dormers concealed behind a parapet. The ground and first floor are separated by a plat band beneath which are eight pattress plates. There is a projecting eaves-level cornice beneath the plain parapet. The sash windows in each bay all have classical surrounds with round arches, keys and moulded capitals. The doorcase, which meets the historic street level, lower than the current pavement, is classically detailed with consoles supporting a triangular pediment. To the left and right of the principal block are C19 extensions that abut rusticated plaster quoins. Both have rusticated ground floors. On the left, a first floor sash window with an exposed sash box sits beneath a pitched roof of Welsh slate. On the right-hand side only the ground floor remains at street level (retained from the Munt and Brown factory building). Two modern sash windows light the shop behind.

The east elevation faces Priory Gardens. Here the principal block is seven bays wide, three either side of a forward central bay with a pediment. It is walled in header bond brickwork with rendered quoins. There is a plat band at first floor and a dentil cornice beneath the parapet. The horned sash windows (one per bay, except three doorways at ground floor) have gauged brick segmental arches with keys and concealed sash boxes. The central bay has a large pedimented door surround at ground floor with Tuscan pilasters, and an arched sash window at first floor. The mansard roof can be seen behind. At the left-hand side, the rendered wall of the single storey lean-to extension remaining from the Munt and Brown factory building projects south for one bay, and has a three-over-six sash window.

The north elevation connects directly to the neighbouring High Street building, except for a gap on the western side which shows evidence of the historic M-profile roof that predates the current mansard.

The rendered south elevation steps outwards with slate-roofed lean-tos at ground and first floor. Attached to the ground floor is a cast iron verandah with a swept roof, the former lead roof has been replaced with an alternative material following theft of the roofing metal.

INTERIOR: the multi-phased interior does not conform to a traditional plan form. Principal spaces can be found on the ground floor (undercroft, reception rooms, stair hall) and first floor (former bedrooms facing west and east), alongside ancillary spaces such as the gift shop, kitchens, offices, and stores that are dispersed across all levels. Throughout the interior there is a good degree of survival for cornices and architraves.

The character of the interior is largely determined by its C18 and C19 domestic use, with the major exception of the outstanding C13 vaulted undercroft.

The undercroft is a single unified space within the western range of the building. It is four bays wide and a single bay deep. Each cell has a quadripartite vault with chamfered ribs of (largely) Totternhoe stone supporting a chalk vault web. The ribs die into the chamfered responds without capitals and the springing point has a tas-de-charge construction. Evidence suggests that each bay originally featured wall ribs but these are no longer fully discernible. The east wall of the southern bay contains a (repaired) C15 fireplace. The main entrance on the west wall leads to a marble chequer-tiled floor, indicating a C18 entrance hall. Some walls have been stripped of render revealing their composition. Notably the south wall shows evidence of a former fireplace (illustrated in 1820, now relocated to the east half of the ground floor) and brick repair. The windows on the west wall have shutters with H-hinges. The east wall includes one internal window, arched to match the others. The north wall has pointed archways to the left and right of a space historically occupied by a (perhaps post-medieval) fireplace. Both archways were historically doorways, but today only the right-hand door still functions.

There are two further reception rooms on the ground floor, either side of the stair hall. The southern room has elements of reused C17 small-field panelling making up the dado, and a chamfered ceiling beam. Against the south wall is a relocated late C17 or early C18 fire surround that was formerly installed in the undercroft. The lugged surround has a shell motif and is surmounted by a border of carved swags and a mantle-shelf on foliate consoles. The northern room is larger with a deep, moulded cornice and two arched recesses either side of a blocked chimney breast.

The stair hall at the centre of the eastern range communicates with all floors. Its principal feature is the C18 (around 1720-1740) open-well oak staircase that rises in three stages to the first floor. It has an open string with foliate tread-ends. There are three twist-turned balusters to each tread, and a broad oak handrail which ramps upwards to each colonette newel. At the ground floor curtail step the handrail winds to form a monkey tail terminal. Against the walls the raised and fielded dado panelling mirrors the proportion and the ramps of the balustrade. The wall panels parallel to the staircase are made of oak while those against the outer walls are pine. The stair was extended to the attic storey in the 1990s with simplified detail. The panelled underside of the stair at ground floor provides access to the basement.

The first floor landing has a deeply moulded cornice, dado panelling, and a panelled-archway leading into the west range. The landing is lit by an arched stair window in the east wall. The upper walls of the medieval building continue at first floor level, concealed beneath later surfaces. The northern room of the eastern range has at first floor level a collection of wall paintings (around 1610 in date) relocated from 20 High Street North, Dunstable (Grade II) that were donated to the building in 2006. The same room has a late-C19 or early-C20 cast iron fire surround, above which the underside of a secondary attic stair can be seen. On the west side of the first floor the configuration of the principal rooms appears to have been altered over time. The four arched windows along the west elevation have shuttered, panelled reveals on the interior side. Two of these are have arched panelling, leaving a mismatched pair in the centre of the plan that suggests an earlier division existing between them. The southernmost room on the western side has a dentil cornice.

The north-east corner of the first floor reveals some of the phasing sequences of the building during the C19. A complex arrangement of service stairs leads from the ground floor up to a small attic. This single-cell attic space illustrates the constrained proportions of the earlier M-profile roof. It contains C18 roof purlins, wide deal floorboards, and a doorway formed from reused panelling.

The main attic space is accessed from the principal staircase and has a high mansard roof at its centre, constructed around 1840 or later in the C19. The outermost purlins are retained from the late C18 M-profile roof structure. The four small dormers date from at least the early C19, though their windows have been replaced in the late C20 or early C21. A two-tier window on the north elevation includes C19 fabric in the uppermost tier.

The cellars occupy three chambers cut directly into the chalk bedrock. The date of their construction is not known but is likely to be associated with the C18 expansion of the building. The largest chamber (now subdivided with WCs) is beneath the suspended timber floor of the north-western corner of the principal block. There are two other, smaller, barrel vaulted chambers with brick floors.

History

Dunstable stands at the crossroads of Watling Street and the Icknield Way, ancient routes of communication that created the economic underpinnings of the town. By the 1100s a planned market town had been established, with (1123) a royal residence and (sometime before 1125) an Augustinian abbey founded by Henry I. Dunstable Priory, the new monastic foundation, would dominate the town for much of the Middle Ages, with a large priory complex and cathedral-sized church. The priory profited from and developed the local wool trade so that the market at Dunstable reached a point of considerable regional significance. In the Early Modern period Dunstable became an important staging post on coaching routes to and from London. Although the development of railway travel undermined its prosperity in the mid-C19, the town established itself as a specialist centre for straw hat and bonnet making in tandem with the growth of Luton’s hat-making industry.

The building known today as Priory House is the oldest extant building in Dunstable, aside from the parish church, and is nationally rare for its surviving C13 vaulted ground floor undercroft. It stands close to the historic crossroads at the heart of the town, opposite the market place on the south side of the High Street, and close to the medieval monastic precinct. Because the land has never been subject to the collection of tithes (a form of local tax gathered to fund the established church) it is likely that the land and perhaps the building itself was originally owned by Dunstable Priory and may have had a strong relationship to it.

It is a multi-phase structure, the oldest part of which (the ground floor vaulted undercroft) dates to the early- to mid-C13. The original purpose of the building is not known. Suggested functions are secular based on the building's location and include a merchant's house, a hostelry, an almonry, a manor court, a hospital or a function related to the running of the market. Whatever its purpose, the building would have been expensive to produce and the remaining parts are of a very high quality. It would originally have been a single room deep and would have supported an upper storey hall and possibly a solar, accessed via an external staircase. Possible comparators include the manor house at Boothby Pagnell and the ruined two-storey guest house at Thornholme Priory (both in Lincolnshire). Fabric evidence and comparative examples suggest that the undercroft would originally have had rendered walls and limewashed stonework, perhaps painted to imitate ashlar.

In the C15 the building was modified and a new fireplace was inserted in the south-east corner of the undercroft. Later fireplaces at the north and south ends of the room were extant between the C18 and C19 but were removed in the C20.

The first written record of the building occurs in an indenture of 1544 where it is referred to as part of the manor of Dame Saiers. It continued to be associated with that name into the early C19.

Probate records of 1694/5 relating to the will of Robert Crawley, Doctor in Physick, refer to his manor or mansion house called 'Dame Sayres' with barns, stables, outhouses, gardens, orchards and premises belonging to the same; and with a piece of ground around 5 acres called the 'Pryory'. Similar probate and conveyancing records describe Dame Sayers until a notice of sale published in 1806 when the building is first called 'the Priory'.

Over the course of the C18 the house roughly doubled in size. In the early- to mid-C18 the street front was either refaced in stone or the medieval stone was cut back to create a new ashlar appearance. New round-arched windows were introduced with shutters on the inside. The very high quality staircase (enlarged in the 1990s) also dates to around 1730-1740. The ground floor undercroft had by this date been subdivided to create an entrance hall and panelled reception rooms. An eastern range was attached to the existing west range, creating a double-pile plan beneath an M-profile roof structure, with three basement rooms excavated from the chalk bedrock. This eastern range was faced in expensive header-bond brickwork and gives the impression of a single period of construction sometime in the last quarter of the C18. In reality it has unified various phases of earlier building campaigns hidden behind the new garden frontage. The windows of the garden front appear to have been replaced in around 1840.

By 1809 the house contained a breakfast parlour, dining room, drawing room, numerous bedrooms and dressing rooms, housekeeper's and servants' rooms, kitchen, scullery, dairy, and several ancillary structures and outbuildings.

In the early C19, before 1840, two phases of extensions filled the gap between the building and its neighbour to the north. This created a single room on each floor of the street-facing side of the building, and in a second building campaign produced a small attic room on the garden side. By 1812 a three-bay, two-storey brick extension had been added to the south side of the building, incorporating a carriage arch in the southern bay.

In 1832 the building was leased to Munt and Brown, straw bonnet and hat makers, who eventually bought the property in 1839. As part of this transition the roof structure was altered: the outer slopes of the C18 M-profile roofs were retained and expanded to create a large mansard roof structure. A large adjoining structure was created alongside, incorporating the southern brick extension, to create a substantial hat factory and the entire complex was rendered to create a consistent appearance. The domestic parts of the building were retained as accommodation for the manager and his family. The factory was set for closure in 1908 and the additional buildings were demolished between then and 1911. The stepped lean-to configuration of the south end of the remaining building is largely the result of this period of post-factory alteration and was complete by 1926. Since the closure of the factory the building had reverted to fully domestic use, still in the ownership of the Munt family.

Dunstable Borough Council acquired the building for use as their offices in 1946. In the mid-1980s, after the council's status as an independent authority had been overtaken by South Bedfordshire District Council, the building was sold for use as private offices. The building returned to more local ownership in 2003 when the newly created Dunstable Town Council (supported by a grant from the National Lottery) acquired Priory House as a heritage centre, cafe, tourist information centre and gift shop. The building's layout today continues the long history of internal reconfiguration and reuse to reflect these changes. The conservation of the stonework of the vaulted undercroft has been the subject of several phases of repair since 2011.

Reasons for Listing

Priory House, a multi-phase building originating as a high-status C13 secular structure likely to be associated with Dunstable Priory with major building phases as a domestic structure in the C18 and C19, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* for the high quality of its medieval undercroft, which features chamfered free-stone ribs and columns, and vault webs of local clunch;
* for its unified classical external elevations, including the header-bond brickwork of the garden front;
* for the craftsmanship of its domestic interior features, especially the principal staircase.

Historic interest:

* for the extent of its surviving medieval fabric, establishing Priory House as the oldest secular building in Dunstable;
* for the complexity of its many phases which can be read in the building's fabric and reflect the layered history of the town, from the monastic period through to genteel domestic functions and later as part of the hat making industry.

External Links

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