Priest Park Farm Barn

Details

BALSALL

732/0/10040 WARWICK ROAD 11-SEP-06 Priest Park Farm Barn

II A threshing barn of the C19. Built of brick in Flemish stretcher bond, with three courses of stretcher bond between each course of Flemish bond. The roof is covered in plain clay tile. The barn is a simple rectangle on plan. EXTERIOR: The north east elevation has a hatch to the first floor hayloft, above a window to the stock area below. Both openings have been shortened but their original segmental arched openings remain in situ. The doorways to the threshing bay have segmental arched heads and retain their arched top plank doors with wrought iron strap hinges on pintles. In the bay between the doors and the opening to the hayloft is a large diamond shaped honeycomb arrangement of ventilation holes, with another to the northernmost bay. There is a chamfered brick plinth to the long elevations, and a projecting string course formed from three courses of brick runs under the eaves and at the same level around the gable ends of the barn. Three projecting courses run up the verges on the gable ends. To the north west gable end, a later doorway and window opening have been introduced. The south east gable end has a small opening at first floor level, in the hayloft, and a blocked doorway under a segmental arch to the stock area below. The long elevation to the south west has similar doorway and doors to those on the north east side. INTERIOR: The barn is of three bays, and the interior is supported on a series of tall pointed arches finished with bull nose bricks forming curved edges. The fourth bay is separated from the rest of the barn by a full height brick wall apparently of the same date as the rest of the barn. This bay is divided horizontally into a stock area below with a hayloft above. The remaining three bays form the threshing barn. The gable end wall has a pilaster buttress of bull-nose bricks running from ground level to the ridge which supports the ridge piece at the top. Similar bull nose bricks form stops to the thickness of the wall either side of the threshing doors. The roof structure has twin purlins and a diagonally set ridge piece; the pointed brick arches serve as trusses and so the remainder of the roof is of common rafters only. There are diagonal wind braces at either side of each brick arch.

HISTORY: Priest Park Farm was part of the historic estate of Lady Katherine Leveson, the daughter of Robert Dudley, son of the Earl of Leicester of the same name. The lands at Temple Balsall had, as the name implies, belonged to the Knights Templar and in the C14 passed to the Order of St John, the Knights Hospitaller. When the Order was suppressed by Henry VIII at the Dissolution, the land was taken by the King. In 1543, he settled the manor of Temple Balsall on Catherine Parr on his marriage to her, but as she remained childless in her marriage after Henry's death, the lands reverted to the Crown on her own death. Having thus passed to Elizabeth I, the lands were then given to her favourite, the Earl of Leicester, from whom they eventually passed to his grand-daughters, Lady Katherine Leveson and Lady Anne Holbourne, who with her husband provided funds for the restoration of the parish church in the 1660s and left an endowment to pay for a minister. When Anne died, Lady Katherine, of Trentham Hall in Staffordshire, bought up her sister's share of the manor. On her death in 1674, Lady Katherine left several legacies, including one for the erection of a hospital or almshouse, and another to found a school for twenty of the poorest boys of the parish. The first almswomen were admitted to the hospital in 1679. The hospital, primary school and surrounding lands remain in the ownership of the Lady Katherine Leveson Foundation to the present day, and are still in their original uses. The hospital and school are situated in Temple Balsall, a couple of miles from the site of Priest Park Farm, which may have been the home farm for the estate, and which also remains in the ownership of the Lady Katherine Leveson Foundation. Priest Park Farm House dates from c.1710, and this barn was added in the C19.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE :

Priest Park Farm was part of an historic estate owned by the Foundation of Lady Katherine Leveson, grand-daughter of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester; the Foundation was endowed in the late C17 to provide almshouses and a school for local people. Priest Park Farm, likely to have been the home farm for the estate, was founded in the early C18, and Priest Park Farm Barn was added to the C18 farmstead in the C19. In order to meet the criteria for listing, agricultural buildings of this date need to show evidence of their original function, rarity and lack of alteration, as well as some architectural quality. The barn at Priest Park Farm is a largely unaltered threshing barn of good quality and the unusual design of the interior, with its innovative use of brick built pointed arches serving as posts and roof trusses creates a real sense of design and architecture which compares well with the contemporary barn at Balsall Lodge Farm, Temple Balsall (Grade II).

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

496403

Legacy System:

LBS

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