Barn to South West of Powdermill Farmhouse
BARN TO SOUTH WEST OF POWDERMILL FARMHOUSE, LITTLETON LANE
Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places
Overview
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II*
- List Entry Number:
- 1158144
- Date first listed:
- 18-Sept-1980
- List Entry Name:
- Barn to South West of Powdermill Farmhouse
- Statutory Address:
- BARN TO SOUTH WEST OF POWDERMILL FARMHOUSE, LITTLETON LANE
Location
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Images of England Project
- Date:
- 2001-06-11
- Reference:
- IOE01/02566/12
- Rights:
- © N.L. Stones. Source: Historic England Archive
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Discover moreOfficial list entry
- Heritage Category:
- Listed Building
- Grade:
- II*
- List Entry Number:
- 1158144
- Date first listed:
- 18-Sept-1980
- List Entry Name:
- Barn to South West of Powdermill Farmhouse
- Statutory Address 1:
- BARN TO SOUTH WEST OF POWDERMILL FARMHOUSE, LITTLETON LANE
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
The scope of legal protection for listed buildings
This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.
Unless the List entry states otherwise, it includes both the structure itself and any object or structure fixed to it (whether inside or outside) as well as any object or structure within the curtilage of the building.
For these purposes, to be included within the curtilage of the building, the object or structure must have formed part of the land since before 1st July 1948.
Location
- Statutory Address:
- BARN TO SOUTH WEST OF POWDERMILL FARMHOUSE, LITTLETON LANE
The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.
- District:
- North Somerset (Unitary Authority)
- Parish:
- Winford
- National Grid Reference:
- ST5505264303
Details
ST 56 SE
1816/7/124
18-SEP-80
WINFORD
LITTLETON LANE
(West side)
BARN TO SOUTH WEST OF POWDERMILL FARMHOUSE
GV
II*
Barn. Late C17 or C18, with inserted C18 powder magazine; the whole building then remodelled and re-roofed C19. Roughly-squared limestone rubble, brick gable stack, and pantile roof.
PLAN: Rectangular plan with inserted vaulted powder store at N end.
EXTERIOR: Central cart entrance with timber lintel and double plank doors, round-arched doorway to right with a C20 glazed door to powder store, small window to left; blocked entrance in S end under upper segmental-arched door to hayloft. N gable has a round-arched doorway beneath a C19 projecting arch supporting a brick stack, and irregular toothed ends to front and back elevation and string at eaves height, indicating position of a former lean-to. Rear has a small window to powder store and three blocked lights, with a segmental-arched doorway to the right.
INTERIOR: Barn has central threshing floor, and six C19 king post trusses; mid or later C19 joist holes cut across the entrance. The S end occupied by a chamber, lower than the barn walls, with thick rubble walls and a semi-circular arched groin vault. Above the chamber, the barn walls are plastered.
HISTORY: Littleton gunpowder mill operated for about a century from the early C18. It was one of three in Somerset which were started to supply local mining interests and also foreign markets through the port of Bristol, and all of which closed by the mid-C19. It is the best surviving gunpowder works from this period in the country, the C18 powder mill complex with its canal being a Scheduled Ancient Monument.
It is probable that the vaulted structure was inserted into the barn during the early working of the mill, as storage of powder it an important part of the manufacturing process. Its location close to the house, the design, with three openings, and the unique manner of construction, within a pre-existing farm building, make it a unique example of one of the most characteristic buildings found at a powder works.
(Buchanan, B and Tucker, M T, ' The Manufacture of Gunpowder', Industrial Archaeology Review, V.3.1981; Crocker, G, The Gunpowder Mills Gazetteer, 1988; Former Avon County SMR entry 2190; Gilson R G, Unpublished VAG Report, September 1979; Brenda Buchanan, "The Technology of Gunpowder Making in the Eighteenth Century: Evidence from the Bristol Region", Transactions of the Newcomen Society, Vol. 67 (1995-6)).
Listing NGR: ST5505264303
Legacy
The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.
- Legacy System number:
- 33991
- Legacy System:
- LBS
Sources
Books and journals
Crocker, G, The Gunpowder Mills Gazetteer, (1988)
Avon County Sites and Monuments Record in No 2190, ()
Buchanan, B J, Tucker, M T, Industrial Archaeology Review in The Manufacture of Gunpowder: A Study of the Documentary and Physical Evidence Relating to the Woolley Powder Works near Bath, Vol. 3, (1981)
Buchanan, B, Transactions of the Newcomen Society in The Technology of Gunpowder Making in the Eighteenth Century: Evidence from the Bristol Region, Vol. 67, (1995-6)
Gilson, R G, Vernacular Architecture Group Report in Vernacular Architecture Group Report, (1979)
Legal
This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.
Map
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