Listing Text

SP60SW
5/97

GREAT MILTON
CHURCH ROAD (East side)
The Priory and attached steps, walls and gateway

18/07/63

GV
II*
Large house. C16 and C17. Coursed limestone rubble with ashlar quoins; old plain-tile roof and brick stacks. L-plan. Two storeys plus attics.

Parapeted three-gable front has stone-mullioned windows, all with concave chamfers and labels. Four-centre arched entrance to left of centre with three large three-light windows at ground floor, probably C19; four windows at first floor, of two- and three- lights; two-light windows in gables. Stone cartouche with arms of Boyle over the door. Large stack to right of centre with four clustered diagonal shafts and second stack in left gable wall, probably inserted since windows below are blocked. Right gable also has a two-light gable window and a blocked three-light window below. Rear has two gables, one with large mullioned windows, the other behind the stack and containing the stair. A four-light roof dormer has a moulded bargeboard and the pendant of an apex finial. Three-bay rear wing of two storeys returns on left and is of square coursed rubble. It has similar mullioned windows but is probably an early C17 addition. A gabled extension has been added on the left.

Interior: Two wide Tudor-arched fireplaces, back to back; large kitchen fireplace with keyblock in the rear wing. A wide flight of stone steps ascends against the rear gable wall to a Jacobean gateway with a stone gable and three ball finials. The gate is set in a wall with steep coping which extends further down the garden as a retaining wall and forms the rear wall of a stone outbuilding. A low wall with a similar coping ascends beside the steps.

Said to have been built for Dr. Westfalling who became Vice-Chancellor of Oxford University in 1565 and Bishop of Hereford in 1585. Oliver Cromwell and John Milton are reputed to have visited John Thurloe, Secretary of State, during his tenancy.

Listing NGR: SP6295702610