Granary at Bishop's Court Farm

91 High Street, Dorchester-on-Thames, Wallingford, OX10 7HP

Listed on the National Heritage List for England. Search over 400,000 listed places

Overview

Granary to Bishop’s Court Farm, dating from the mid-C19. Read the official list entry to find out more.

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1445250
Date first listed:: 06-Nov-2017
List Entry Name:: Granary at Bishop's Court Farm
Statutory Address:: 91 High Street, Dorchester-on-Thames, Wallingford, OX10 7HP

The Missing Pieces Project

Share your view of unique places.

Add your contribution

Location

Location of this list entry and nearby places that are also listed. Use our map search to find more listed places.

There is a problem

Use of this mapping is subject to terms and conditions.

This map is for quick reference purposes only and may not be to scale.

What is the National Heritage List for England?

The National Heritage List for England is a unique register of our country's most significant historic buildings and sites. The places on the list are protected by law and most are not open to the public.

The list includes:

🏠 Buildings
🏰 Scheduled monuments
🌳 Parks and gardens
⚔️ Battlefields
⚓ Shipwrecks

Find out more about listing

Historic England Archive

Search over 1 million photographs and drawings from the 1850s to the present day using our images archive.

Find Photos

Official list entry

Heritage Category:: Listed Building
Grade:: II
List Entry Number:: 1445250
Date first listed:: 06-Nov-2017
List Entry Name:: Granary at Bishop's Court Farm
Statutory Address 1:: 91 High Street, Dorchester-on-Thames, Wallingford, OX10 7HP

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

This List entry helps identify the building designated at this address for its special architectural or historic interest.

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.

Understanding list entries

Corrections and minor amendments

Location

Statutory Address:: 91 High Street, Dorchester-on-Thames, Wallingford, OX10 7HP

The building or site itself may lie within the boundary of more than one authority.

County:: Oxfordshire
District:: South Oxfordshire (District Authority)
Parish:: Dorchester
National Grid Reference:: SU5750394646

Summary

Granary to Bishop’s Court Farm, dating from the mid-C19.

Reasons for Designation

The mid-C19 Granary at Bishop’s Court Farm is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a good example of a timber-framed granary raised on staddle stones, which survives, largely, in its original form and illustrates a regional type; * it is a high-quality construction, with a substantial frame with decorative mouldings; * it retains features internally relating to the use of the building, such as the first-floor partitioning and internal door.

Group value:

* the granary has a historic functional relationship with the listed Bishop's Court Farmhouse, and provides evidence of its mid-C19 prosperity.

History

Bishops' Court Farm is so-named for its occupation of a site reputed to have been destroyed in the Reformation. The farmhouse is listed at Grade II; it is an early-C19 remodelling of a timber-framed building believed to have originated in the C16. Late-C19 maps show a number of agricultural buildings in a loose courtyard plan to the north of the farmhouse; further buildings are shown in early-C20 maps, and by the 1972 Ordnance Survey map, the courtyard is completed infilled. The structures present in the courtyard area on the late-C19 maps appear to have been entirely modernised.

The granary stands approximately 70m to the north-west of the farmhouse, beyond the group of barns. It is not shown on the Tithe map of 1847, but is present by the first edition of the Ordnance Survey, dating from 1877. The building is largely unchanged.

Details

Granary to Bishop’s Court Farm, dating from the mid-C19.

MATERIALS: the building is timber framed and mounted on limestone staddle stones, with timber weatherboarding and a slate roof. A brick supporting plinth has been added between the third and fourth staddles on the north side, and fourth and fifth on the south.

PLAN: the building stands to the north-west of the expansive complex of sheds and barns, once a loose courtyard plan. It is rectangular on plan and is orientated roughly east/west.

EXTERIOR: the granary stands on three rows of five staddle stones. It is clad in horizontal weatherboarding and has a pitched roof. There are occasional, irregular openings in the cladding, which are now covered with modern sheeting. The entrance is on the south elevation; the doorway has a segmental-arched head, and a ledge and plank door.

INTERIOR: internally, the building has two floors; the lower floor is a single open space, and the upper floor, accessible through an open hatch, has a timber stud wall dividing it into two rooms. The timber frame is exposed internally, and is of three principal bays. On the lower floor, posts with moulded heads support deep ceiling beams with chamfered edges and lamb’s tongue stops. The walls have substantial studs and braces. On the upper floor the upright posts of the central bays carry the wall plate, and cruck blades rise from the floor plate to meet the collar beam, with a tie to the wall plate part-way up. At either gable end, there is simply a collar and tie. There is a single, wide purlin carrying the rafters, which meet at a narrow ridge piece. The boarded partition on the upper floor has a ledge and plank door with slender strap hinges.

Sources

Websites
Lobel, M (ed), 'Parishes: Dorchester', in A History of the County of Oxford: Volume 7, Dorchester and Thame Hundreds, pp 39-64, accessed 15/07/2017 from http://www.british-history.ac.uk/vch/oxon/vol7/pp39-64
Oxfordshire Historic Environment Record, No 1912: Site of Medieval Bishop's Palace and Tithe Barn at Dorchester, accessed 15/08/2017 from http://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MOX7236&resourceID=1033

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.