IF you’ve been to Mount Grace Priory, at Saddle Bridge on the edge of the North York Moors, you’ll probably remember it for the peace and beauty of its setting, and the flavour it gives of the lives of Carthusian monks who lived here in the 14th and 15th centuries.

The ruins of the Priory church, and the recreation of one of the cells occupied by the monks – who each had their own small, enclosed cell with its individual patch of garden – leave a lasting impression of the lives of solitude and piety led by these strange hermits.

There is more to Mount Grace than the peace and the priory, however.

Following the dissolution of the monasteries by Henry VIII in 1539, the medieval, honey-stoned guest-house which had accommodated visitors to the monastery was converted into a manor house.

Centuries later, in 1898, that house was bought by the Teesside steel magnate Sir Lowthian Bell. It had, by then, fallen into serious disrepair. A leading light of the fledgling Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, Bell determined to rescue it.

Bell was an advocate of the Arts and Crafts movement – and while refurbishing it he chose to give it an Arts and Crafts twist.

The movement was a reaction against Victorian mass production, and an attempt to preserve and encourage the return of skilled craftsmanship.

It was exemplified by the work of William Morris, the English poet and artist, who perfected the use of woodblocks to print hand-made wallpaper.

Bell employed Morris and Co to mastermind the refurbishment of the Mount Grace manor house – and the result was an icon of Arts and Crafts design.

That was 100 years ago. Now, following a year-long £150,000 conservation project, English Heritage has restored two rooms at the manor house to their true Arts and Crafts glory.

Restorers actually found fragments of the original William Morris wallpaper – an elegant floral design in pale green and light pink. It had been hand-made using apple and pearwood printing blocks, says Martin Allfrey, English Heritage’s York-based head of collections. And by visiting the archives of Morris and Co, English Heritage was able to find the very printing blocks that had been used to produce the original wallpaper for the house.

English Heritage then commissioned a craftsman to hand-make 12 rolls of the same wallpaper, for the manor house’s drawing room. “And we used the very blocks that were used 100 years ago to print it. They have only been used about six times since!”

That wallpaper has now been hung, and the rest of the drawing room and another room at the manor house refurbished in a style as near to the original Arts and Crafts look Bell achieved in 1902 as possible.

Furniture in the Arts and Crafts style has been designed based on old photographs of other properties Bell owned, a new oak floor has been fitted, and ceilings replastered.

The effect, Martin says, is wonderfully cosy. If you look at a small piece of the wallpaper in isolation, it looks quite fussy, he admits. “And you’d imagine it would look terrible when it was up on the walls. But because it is a large room, and there’s quite a lot of white space above the plate racks, it looks amazing.”

You’ll be able to judge for yourself, weather permitting. Mount Grace Priory is open to the public from Thursday to Sunday during the winter and it might make for a pleasingly different trip out.

“I hope the feeling visitors will get is that they would quite like to move in!” Martin says. “There’s a beautiful, large, open fire, and there’s this space that you feel very much at home in. It’s very cosy, especially at the moment.”

• Winter opening times at Mount Grace Priory are Thursday to Sunday, 10am to 4pm. The Priory will be closed on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day and New Year’s Day but open as normal throughout the winter otherwise. Entry is £4.70 adults, £4 concessions, £2.40 children, £11.80 family ticket. Under Fives and English Heritage and National Trust members get in free.