The Wheat Barn at Cressing Temple

Summary

An aisled barn, constructed for the Knights Templar sometime between 1257 and 1280. One of the earliest surviving timber framed barns in England, the thirteenth century Wheat Barn is also scheduled, and forms a part of the Cressing Temple scheduled monument.

Reasons for Designation

The Wheat Barn at Cressing Temple is listed at Grade I for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:
* for the exceptional interest found in its C13 timber frame and the technical aspects of its construction;
* for its early adoption of a side purlin roof construction.

Historic interest:
* as one of the earliest surviving timber framed barns in England;
* for its origins as part of a significant Templar preceptory.

Group value:
* for the contribution it makes to the exceptional group of listed and scheduled assets at Cressing Temple; including the Grade I listed Barley Barn, the Grade II* listed Granary, the Grade II listed Farmhouse, and the Grade II listed Walled Garden with attached structures.

History

Cressing Temple is named for its earliest recorded owners, the Knights Templar, and the nearby settlement at Cressing. The Templars were a military monastic order founded in the crusader kingdom of Jerusalem in around 1118. They rapidly spread in number, wealth and significance. In 1137, less than twenty years after their foundation, Queen Matilda granted the Templars the land for a ‘preceptory’ at Cressing, augmented by the granting of the neighbouring manor of Witham by her husband, King Stephen, in 1147.

The preceptory served as an administrative and financial centre managing recruitment and the burgeoning wealth of the order. It was only the second Templar site in England, after that in London. It was soon large and important enough that within seven decades two large barns had been built, along with a chapel, hall or domestic building, fishponds, and a moat.

The second-earliest surviving building at the site is the Wheat Barn, constructed sometime between 1257 and 1280. It represents some aspects of technical progression in timber framed construction when compared with the Barley Barn, including use of secret form notched-lap joints, cantilevered end bays, and perhaps the earliest surviving examples of side purlins in an English barn. Over the next seven centuries it remained in constant agricultural use.

The Templars were suppressed in 1308 and in 1312 Cressing Temple was transferred to the Knights Hospitallers. In 1381 the site was sacked during the Peasants’ Revolt.

Under the Hospitallers the Wheat Barn saw some significant alterations.

The west end of the barn was repaired in 1420-1450, possibly a consequence of the earth platform on which the western half was constructed. The work included the rebuilding of the wall with closer set studs and wattle and daub infill. The sole plates at this end were possibly raised at the same time, and the staves were added between the sole-plates and arcade posts. The addition of the midstrey formed part of this phase of work (reusing some material from the barn’s original construction).

The Hospitallers were themselves disbanded in England in 1546 and their land was surrendered to the Crown. The site was granted to Sir William Huse and then sold to the Smyth family, who oversaw the remodelling of the site in the late-C16.

Brick nogging was added in phases from the late-C16, some dating to around 1700. An animal shelter was attached to the west end of the barn in the C19.

The barn remained in agricultural use until 1987 when it came into the ownership of Essex County Council. A programme of repairs was almost immediately required to address damage caused by the Great Storm of that year, including the replacement of the tiled roof coverings.

Details

An aisled barn, constructed for the Knights Templar sometime between 1257 and 1280.

MATERIALS

The barn is oak-framed and the roofs are covered in plain tiles. The walls stand on a brick plinth and are close studded with brick nogging infill.

EXTERIOR

The barn is rectangular and orientated roughly east-west. It is 40m long, 13m wide and 13m high above the plinth. There is a central midstrey or porch on the south side. The main roof is hipped with gablets; the midstrey roof is half-hipped on the south side. Over the north barn doors the roof ramps upwards over a slightly shallower pitch. The ground slopes steeply downwards towards the west and south, so the west end of the barn stands on a substantial earth platform and brick plinth. The close studding and brick nogging is continuous except for the south face of the midstrey which is weatherboarded. The building almost touches the Tudor walled garden at the south-east corner.

Attached to the west end of the barn is a C19 animal shelter. It stands below the eaves of the barn itself and is five bays long, four of which are open to the south side. It has a hipped roof covered in plain tiles. The westernmost bay is clad in weatherboard on the south side. The west and north sides are brick built. A brick trough survives internally.

INTERIOR

The barn has five main bays with smaller cantilevered end bays. The trusses are formed of tied beams and principal rafters supported by arcade posts, with passing braces running from the wall posts to the principal rafters. There are early side purlins at collar level, clamped between collar, rafter and strut. Sub-trusses rise off the arcade plate and provide braces for the purlins. The cantilevered end bays are formed by the continuation of the arcade plates beyond the final trusses.

The construction of the wheat barn makes greater use of mortice-and-tenon joints, and uses secret form notched-lap joints in preference to the simpler form used at the barley barn (though the simpler form is also present).

Scars in the wall plates indicate that the outer walls originally had widely spaced studs with vertical boards slotted between them, before being reformed with the existing brick nogging.

Within the threshing porch (interior of the midstrey) there are C18 boards and ‘threshing sockets’ used to support large canvases employed in the winnowing of grain.

Alterations to the fabric include the addition of nailed windbraces to prevent racking, and the introduction of posts to support the cantilevered ends. In the early C20 a dais was installed at the east end to keep stored supplies away from the ground.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

116397

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Hewett, C A, The Development of Carpentry 1200-1700 An Essex Study, (1969)
Robey, TS, Cressing Temple in Current Archaeology, Vol. 135, (1993), 84-87
RCHME, , An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Essex: Volume 3, (1922)
Andrews, D, Cressing Temple: a Templar and Hospitaller manor in Essex, (2020)

Websites
'The People of 1381' database., accessed 17/11/2025 from https://data.1381.online/projects_database/pr_sources_ro/?action=view&id=3742

End of official list entry

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