Exterior
Abbey buildings, whitewashed roughcast, with red tile dressings in the form of sills, string-courses and arched hoods to windows. Red tiled roofs with prominent roughcast stacks. Free early C20 Arts & Crafts style with influences from Mediterranean and Romanesque Europe. Windows are either small-paned timber casements or leaded lights. Built around a cloister garth with church at SE corner, former abbot's house and private chapel at SW corner, refectory to W, kitchen and laundry at NW corner, monk's cells and offices over basement workshops in N range, with staircase, library and study room at NE corner.
Single-storey E entrance facade, set back, in lawned courtyard, 3 bays, with arched main door in projecting centre with stepped parapet, and shallow curved oriel each side with tiny stone-framed window. Nogged brick string course right across, under empty narrow niche in parapet. Piers each side of doorway are in red and white chequerwork, arch is in brick. To R, a narrow link bay with small arched light, and then at right angles, S gable of library block with 3 stepped arched windows in gable, and 2 plain windows below; E side has gabled dormer with triple casement over 3 large arched windows. Forecourt has pergola on S, and single-storey N range parallel to church. Four casement pair windows under eaves to right, lighting statio, 4 tiny stone arched lights to left and 2 in apsed end, lighting chapter-room.
Abbey church entrance faces E, with octofoil rose window, big Romanesque doorway with recessed inner arch, irregular quoins to jambs, and similar irregular quoins to angles, all in grey stone. S side has arched stone single-light windows at upper level, 2 to right shorter, lighting gallery, and 4 longer, over lean-to aisle added 1950 with 5 small arched windows and doorway to left. Sheer battered S tower, also roughcast, has pairs of stone bell-lights and parapet with minimal crenellation. Nave to left of tower has 2 round windows set high at eaves, and lower chancel (created in 1950 from former sacristy) has triplet of small arched lights. Blank rear wall of cloister S range with attached shed is remnant of the cottage range burnt in 1940.
Former abbot's house at SW corner is nearly free-standing with double roof running E-W (a tall chimney in the valley has gone). E front has stone quoins to left, 2 leaded windows in left gable above tiled lean-to each side of tall roughcast square porch with parapet and arched entry. Plank door with ornate hinges and latch within. Lean-to has hipped roof at left corner over chamfered corner window. S side has fine 2-storey gabled bay to left with chamfered angles and leaded lights flush with wall face. 4 lights to front, 1 to angle and 2 to sides, ground floor with two transoms. At SW angle a very tall thin circular stair-tower with tiny arched lights beneath flared conical copper roof (originally tiled with a timber belvedere balcony). W side has 2 gables, 5 leaded paired windows to first floor, a very broad arched window to ground floor left and 3 small stone arched lights to right. Quoins at left angle. On N wall, another round tower with conical copper roof, lower and broader than SW tower, containing external entrance to the abbot's chapel, arched upper lights and arched doorway with stone jambs with small window to right, plank door.
Chapel has apsidal ends to both walls and roof, louvred lantern on ridge, and row of 5 small grey stone arched lights under eaves.
W refectory has basement storey, big roughcast N end stack with triple shafts, and slim round turret on centre of W wall with tiled conical roof. Two large plate-glass arched windows above (formerly with leaded glazing) lighting refectory. Red-tile sill course and linked arched hoods. Basement has broad brick arched window to left of turret. To left, a short link with hipped roof against refectory N gable, flat dormer, 2 C20 windows to upper floor and one arched basement window. Rainwater head dated 1913.
NW prominent octagonal 2-storey kitchen with elaborate 2-stage roof, clerestorey glazing between stages, and louvred spired lantern above. Tall roughcast chimney with 2 round shafts to S. Large round-headed plate glass windows at each level (originally leaded) with linked tile hoods and sills. Short projecting lower N block has hipped lean-to roof and 4-light casement to upper floor on both W and E faces. Against N face is big covered external stair up from the N service court, with sloping tiled roof and 4 stepped arched openings on N.
N range, set high above rock-face, is of 3 storeys plus attics. Full-height basement has massive red brick broad arches, ground floor has narrow arched windows with brick sill course and tile arched hoods linked by string course, and top floor has similar sill and string courses linking arches, windows are in pairs with stone jambs and centre pier. Massive hipped roof with end gablets and roughcast tall stacks, at left end, and on front roof slope. Six dormers of between 2 and 8 lights, 5 flat-roofed with pendants to cornices, the 4th with the main chimney rising through, the 6th with pyramid roof restored in 2001. Another tiny pyramid-roofed dormer restored on left end. Nine pairs of windows to 2nd floor to left of a bay with arched stair lights at intermediate heights. One pair and a single light to right. Ground floor has close-spaced group of 6 narrow lights with joined hoods to left, then 7 wider-spaced windows, and a pair of windows to right of stair lights. Basement has 5 broad half-round brick arches on low stone jambs of massive rock-faced stone blocks, and one narrower doorway with taller jambs to left of stair bay and another similar narrower arch to right, this one with stonework of left jamb also encompassing an arched doorway. Timber mullion and transom glazing with leaded lights. Stair bay has two arched lights, each with head breaking through sill course of a main floor level and tiled hood. To right, in angle to octagonal kitchen tower is a small room at ground floor level, corbelled out with chamfered NE angle.
To L of main N range, gabled library block is set back, 3 storeys with buttresses framing basement and ground floors. Basement has 3 arched windows, first floor has double brick string course under 3 tiny arched windows with tiny roundels above, while gable has 3 stepped leaded arched windows as on S gable end.