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© Mr Michael Perry
IoE Number:
263695
Location:
NAISH PRIORY,
EAST COKER, SOUTH SOMERSET, SOMERSET
Photographer:
Mr Michael Perry
Date Photographed:
28 February 2005
Date listed:
19 April 1961
Date of last amendment:
30 August 1984
Grade
I
The Images of England website consists of images of listed buildings based on the statutory list as it was in 2001 and does not incorporate subsequent amendments to the list. For the statutory list and information on the current listed status of individual buildings please go to The National Heritage List for England.
ST51SW EAST COKER CP NASH
4/137 Naish Priory, including attached
Priory Cottage and North boundary
railings
(Naish Priory formerly listed)
19.4.61
GV I
Portions of a substantial house but never a priory. Circa 1400, with C19 and C20 additions. Local stone rubble with Ham
stone dressings; stone slate and plain clay tile roofs between coped gables; stone chimney stacks, some octagonal with
quatrefoil panel decoration. Three distinct medieval portions; the East wing a gatehouse with chapel over; the centre a
minor single-storey link raised in C19; the West wing possibly the Guest House; no trace above ground of main Hall.
North front now 2-storeys, with attic to West wing, no set bay pattern. The gatehouse has pointed C15 moulded arched
doorway with label, the stops badly eroded; the doors a very fine pair of late C15, with 6-panel applied sub-arcuated
tracery, and central arched wicket (matching pair from South side at Taunton Museum); above an angled oriel window of
1-2-1 cinquefoil cusped lights, with minature battlements and C19 pinnacles over quatrefoil panel band, the underside
being of 2 fan vaults, the bosses of which cut into door label; right at ground floor level a 2-cinquefoil cusped
arched light window under a square label; corner offset buttresses. Central unit has 3 windows, two below and one
above, near copies of this last but of C19, separated by a string course; the upper window set into simple gable with
cross and urn finials. The West wing is taller, and could be an earlier building. At ground floor a 2-light window
similar to those of centre wing, above off-centrer a singe cinquefoil cusped arched light under square label, above
again a plain rectangular window, and to right of building two simple charfered narrow rectangular stairlights; corner
angled offset buttresses, with plain rectangular window with trefoil head at first floor level. Southwards from West
wing projects a 1910 wing (in June 1983 known as Priory Cottage and tenanted), smaller in scale but with design in
harmony: next section of South elevation of C19 late, then projecting stair wing of circa 1820. The East gable has a
2-light mullioned and transomed window of very early C15 type, and is crowned by an apparantly C15 octagonal chimney.
Along the North facade, about 1.5 metres from house, with returns each end, wrot iron railings, probably of C1820,
about 500 metres high with collared gently spiked tops, set on rubble stone wall about 700 mm high. The interior much
modified with work of many dates. In East wing, ground floor, the rear gateway arch and jambs are panelled, and the
East room has a blocked 4-centred doorway in East wall and an inserted fireplace in North wall; the ceiling-roof of the
chapel above considerably restored, also in South wall of this room, a squint window. The centre wing late C19 in
character. The West wing has simple collar beam trusses, with straight principals having curved undersides, and curved
windbraces. The house probably built between 1400 and 1410 by a member of the Courteney family, who had court and
ecclesiastical connections, especially with Henry IV and Joan of Navarre, and are represented on corbel heads to the
East gable windows. Tradition spears of a ruined portion (possibly the hall), and of fragments therefrom being used in
West Coker Hall 1839-42 (qv). (VAG Report, unpublished SRO, 1979).