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Reference no. 1300282
Description: Walls which enclose former Orchard for Kirklees Priory 80 metres to east of Priory Gatehouse
Address: Walls Of Former Orchard To Kirklees Priory The Priory Garden Mill Hill Lane Clifton Brighouse Calderdale
Grade: II
Group detail: Kirklees Park
Full description:
Long drystone walls. Early C16 with some later repairs. Hammer-dressed stone walls capped by offset weathered course and Gothic ridge triangular in section with roll moulding to apex. Quoined angles. The west wall has a gateway through with composite jambs with stop chamfer. The south wall runs alongside the Nun's Brook and is slightly higher than the east wall. All these retain their original Gothic coping, only the north wall (which still stands) lacks it.
It is likely that this is the wall referred to in the Post-Reformation Survey taken by the king's Commissioners first described by John Burton in 'Monastacum Eboracense' (1758), also quoted by S. J. Chadwick, which reads:
'Kirkleys, Scitus domorum',
.............
'Item one orchard enclosed wt. ane old stone walle,
wt. few frute trees, conteyneth by estymacon iij roodes,
of grounde.'
S.J. Chadwick, 'Kirklees Nunnery' (no date) p.32. Copy held in library of Yorkshire Archaeological Society. The relationship of the boundary wall with the priory remains is illustrated by the plan of the 1904-5 excavations in Sir G. Armytage,' Excavations at Kirklees Priory', Proc. S. A. L. 2s xxi, 1975 (May 3, 1906).