Archway

(In the Appreciation as "Archway across road to Abbey House and Workshop")

(Listed in 1956 as "Gateway 30 yards north of Abbey dairy", and now Grade II listed as "25 mtrs SSE of outer gatehouse")

The listings register describes the Archway as having 14th century material re-used, and "re-used" is the significant term. The Appreciation describes it as a "seventeenth century segmental arch. Probably gateway to house destroyed during Civil War" and none of the other commentators see any reason to disagree. What is certain, too, is that it is not an archway from the Abbey precincts, though bits of it might have started from there.

The arch may have been linked to walls running north-south or east-west, but there is no obvious sign of how a gate might have been fixed. The archway resembles the inner porch arches of the Tithe Barn, but also the 17th century doors in the Parish Church. The 1953 Ancient Monuments Inventory places it as 17th century, and the 2003 Conservation Plan suggests that the arch is "a deliberately antiquated structure of 17th century or later date ~ possibly a triumphal arch associated with the Strangways house ~ largely made of salvaged material".

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