The Barn, Lower North Park Farm

Summary

Threshing Barn C18 with late C19-early C20 additions.

Reasons for Designation

The Barn at Lower North Park Farm, a C18 eight-bay threshing barn, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Date & plan: a vernacular barn which exemplifies the importance of large, dispersed threshing and storage barns for crops in the C18 and which, with its single west aisle, is unusual in plan;
* Materials: a barn which uses local sandstone and therefore is a contributor to regional distinctiveness, and which unusually retains part of its original brick floor internally as well as much of its original and substantial oak frame;
* Intactness: a barn which although inevitably modified over the centuries survives in a relatively intact form.

History

Although the precise date the barn was constructed remains unknown, architectural evidence indicates that it is of C18 date. It is a large threshing barn, latterly converted for animals and the storage of fodder. The barn is shown on the 1846 Fernhurst Tithe map as a large rectangular building oriented north-east to south-west with a return at the north-east corner, forming an L-shape overall. The north-east extension was still extant in the 1970s creating a yard area to its south but it has since been demolished. The first edition Ordnance Survey map (1898) is the first detailed depiction showing the barn essentially divided in two with two western set-back entrances. Between 1898 and 1912 the southern extension was added, as was a small extension to the north of the northern entrance. The house to the north of the barn, now known as Keeper’s Cottage, is also of this period and was then known as Lower North Park Farm.

Details

MATERIALS
Local sandstone, oak frame, tile roof, weatherboarding.

EXTERIOR
The Barn is of considerable scale; of eight bays with a later lean-to extension at the south end. The original south end wall is of local sandstone, with some blocks of considerable size. The same stone is used to form a plinth on the north-west and south-east elevations with some later brick replacement patches, and brick is also employed in the north-east elevation. It has a substantial oak timber frame, with the walls formed of studding clad externally in weatherboarding. The massive roof is hipped and tiled. There are paired opposing double doors two bays from the north end, and two further openings in the SE elevation towards the south end. It is presumed that there was originally a further pair of opposing double doors in the south of the building. Two multi-paned glazed windows have been inserted in the south-east elevation and roof lights light the bays in the north-west aisle.

INTERIOR
In plan the barn is aisled to the west with timber partitions dividing-up most of these bays. The massive oak frame was originally supported on a stone plinth to the south-east and on stone post-pads to the north-west (creating the aisle), most of which have been replaced by brick or concrete supports. The original frame has large jowled posts, chamfered tie-beams with braces, raking trusses, and has no collar or ridge piece. There is a ridge piece where there has been later modification, also two of the trusses have crown and queen struts to a collar instead of raking trusses. In the south of the barn are three areas of brick flooring, one using narrow bricks and therefore probably original. The southern bay of the original barn has been sub-divided laterally into stables/stalls and there is a further stall to the north-west in the adjacent bay. A hayloft has also been inserted above one of the centre bays and to the north-west is a late C19-early C20 extension containing a copper. It is not clear why this is present unless the occupants of the adjacent farmhouse, built at the same time as this extension, used it for laundry.

End of official list entry

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