Syningthwaite Priory Farmhouse, Bilton-in-Ainsty with Bickerton, North Yorkshire

Description

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

External Links

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