Cartmel Priory Gatehouse

Cartmel Priory Gatehouse is a 14th-century archway over Priest Lane in the village of Cartmel, built between 1330 and 1340 as the entrance to the precinct of the Augustinian priory founded around 1190 by William Marshal, Earl of Pembroke; apart from the priory church, which the villagers saved from the Dissolution in 1536 and still use as their parish church, it is the only monastic building left standing. After the priory closed it served as the seat and courthouse of the manor until 1624, was then a school until 1790, became a village museum in 1923 and passed to the National Trust in 1946. Look up for the tall ogee-headed windows, the stepped 17th-century window in the gable and the weathered statue of the Virgin in a niche; inside, a stone spiral stair climbs to a first-floor room with a large fireplace, redecorated in ox-blood limewash. It is a listed building and a scheduled monument. Most visitors pair it with the church a few steps away, where reviewers single out the stained glass, the carved 15th-century choir stalls, the small shop and the welcome of a church still at the heart of village life.