Ellergill House Barn, Embsay

Summary

Bank barn/combination barn, constructed early C19, not including the attached garden walls.

Reasons for Designation

Ellergill House Barn is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* as an early C19 barn, which falls within the period where there is a presumption in favour of listing;
* it is built to a high standard, using good quality materials including imported Baltic timber;
* a combination barn that is exceptionally larger and more complex than comparable barns in the Yorkshire Dales;
* it contributes to the regional diversity and character of the Yorkshire Dales;
* it retains good survival of original C19 timber fittings and fixtures throughout.

History

Embsay village is first mentioned in the Domesday Book of 1086, but it is unclear precisely when Ellergill farm was established; although the present farmstead stylistically dates to the early C19 and the earliest mapping dates to the 1846/1847 tithe map. Map regression using various editions of the Ordnance Survey, shows that the plan-form of the farm has remained virtually the same since that time to the present day (2018), with the exception of a number of minor buildings that have been built and later removed. The farmstead consists of a house and a large bank barn (combination barn) to the south-west, which functioned as a combined livestock shed, stables, and fodder barn. The tradition of the use of combination barns in Yorkshire can be traced back to the mid-C17, but this particular early C19 example is exceptionally large, with 12m wide queen post trusses. A number of the timbers in the barn display Baltic timber marks, these indicate that the timbers were imported during the late C18 or early C19 at a considerable expense. Baltic timbers were particularly suitable for spanning wide spaces, as they were straighter and less prone to warp than British timbers. Within the body of the barn, there is a two-storey flat-roofed structure built using rubble construction; it has been suggested that this may have formed accommodation for farm workers, but due to a late C20 conversion into a flat, it has not been possible to establish either a construction date or a definite original function. In addition, a secondary timber ventilation flue extends the full height of the interior of the barn, designed to draw off stale air from the shippons below. It is believed that the building probably went out of use for milking purposes as a consequence of the standards required by the Milk and Dairies Regulations, 1949, and ceased to function in a farm role during the late 1960s to early 1970s.

Details

Bank barn/combination barn constructed early C19.

MATERIALS: coursed gritstone rubble and quarry-faced block construction, tooled gritstone quoins, sills, lintels and jambs, and a stone slate gabled roof.

PLAN: square-plan, three-storey structure with the north and east elevations built into a bank.

EXTERIOR:

North Gable: has quoined corners, three vertical tiers of ventilation slots, a large double cart door to the left, a central low window with double door/shutters, and a door to the right; the latter two openings both appear to be secondary. A substantial re-used arched timber lintel supports the wall over the cart door and there are openings and projecting stones to either side, possibly indicating the position of a former cart porch. Set within the gable are a further two ventilation slots, and a ventilator opening with an ashlar stone surround, located within the apex of the gable. A covered rectangular light well, situated within the yard floor at the western end and two others towards the eastern end of the elevation, would have lit the interior of the lower ground-floor.

East Elevation: has a bank that partially obscures the lower ground-floor of the wall. It has quoined corners, four tiers of ventilation slots and an off-centre four-pane window, within an ashlar stone surround. There are four rectangular light-wells, three of which are blocked, located at regularly intervals against the foot of the wall that would have lit the lower ground-floor shippons.

South Gable: the wall has quoined corners with two tiers of ventilation slots towards each end and irregularly spaced ventilation slots in the central portion of the wall, two graduated rows in the gable, and a rectangular gable ventilator in the apex. The lower ground-floor has two windows and two doorways. The windows have ashlar lintels and sills; the western-most has a timber window frame, with two panes of glass and a hinged slotted ventilator panel below, while the other has two panes and no ventilators. The two doorways have ashlar lintels, quoined jambs and herring bone incised doorsteps, flanked by drain outlets. The left-hand (west) doorway has wrought-iron catches and hinge pins for an outward opening stable door (no longer extant) set into outer faces of the jambs. The right-hand (east) doorway retains its original inwards opening stable door, with wrought-iron hinges and a twist latch. The upper panel of the stable door has a decorative five-slot 'hit and miss' ventilation grille, with a sliding timber baffle on the interior. The verge of the gable has wrought-iron straps designed to prevent lateral movement of the stone slates.

West Elevation: the wall has quoined corners, the lower ground-floor has a doorway to the extreme left (north) leading directly into the stables, a small slightly off-centre window with a single pane of glass lights a transverse corridor, and a blocked window, which at some time has been enlarged into a doorway and then subsequently re-blocked. Of the two, only the blocked window has an original lintel, sill, and jamb. There is a tier of blocked ventilation slits to each end of the wall. A modern four-pane timber window, with plain ashlar surrounds is situated towards the northern end of the upper ground-floor, and there are two similar windows to the first-floor. A square patch of cement render on the wall, between the north door and the corridor window is a witness mark of a former lean-to structure.

The attached garden walls built against the east and south elevations of the barn are secondary features and are not of special architectural or historic interest. The garden walls are excluded from the listing.

INTERIOR:

Lower Ground-floor: was intended for the housing of livestock, it is divided into four distinct areas, the east, west and north-east shippons, and a stable; all are fitted with white-washed timber stalls or boskins. The east and west shippons are accessed by the doors in the south elevation; the larger west shippon has ten stalls, five to either side of a central manure passage with semi-circular drainage channels to either side. The stalls are divided by low timber-framed plank partitions with a mixture of raised stone sett and flag floors, some of which are missing. The stalls are served by feeding passages or byngs, accessed by a southern open passageway, and at the northern end by a transverse corridor. A stone stairs rises to the barn floor against the corridor wall. The east shippon has a single row of five double stalls, with a wide manure passage and an open stone drain running against the east wall. A doorway at the northern end of the manure passage, leads into the north-east shippon. It has three timber double calf stalls on raised concrete floors, laid over the original stone setts. The stalls are served by a byng on their western side, which is accessed by a doorway at the northern end of the east byng. The interior appears to have originally been lit by two light wells in the north wall that have been blocked; similarly, there are three further light wells in the east wall of the barn that formerly lit both the north-east and east shippons. One of these light wells has a barred timber window frame and remains unblocked, in addition, there is a lighting niche for a lamp or candle towards the southern end of the east wall.

The ceiling of the lower ground-floor is formed by the planks of the floor above, which are carried on substantial 8m long timber floor beams; the beams are supported on multiple timber stanchion props, the bases of which rest on slotted stone setts in the floor. A blocked, rectangular opening in the ceiling above the west shippon formally vented into a ventilation flue. Although the walls and timbers are all white-washed, one of the joists in the north-east shippon bears a late C18 or early C19 Baltic timber mark. A stable is situated in the north-west corner of the building, entered from the transverse corridor, or directly from the doorway in the west wall. It has a double timber horse stall and a loose box with timber mangers, served by three fodder hatches in the transverse corridor wall. A light well with a timber window frame and splayed jambs is situated in the north wall and has been covered over at yard level.

Barn (upper ground-floor): the majority of the L-plan timber floor is a large open space, open to the soffit of the roof. A tall rectangular section timber ventilation flue for venting the shippons rises from the floor to the roof. A stone stair rises from the west shippon to the barn, via an open hatch in the floor against the south wall of the internal accommodation/flat. The roof has four bays and is supported by three 12m queen post trusses, carrying four purlins and between six and seven rafters per bay, on each side of the ridge. At least two of the roof trusses have Baltic timber marks.

Internal accommodation/flat (upper ground-floor and first-floor): a rectangular plan two-storey rubble construction flat, with a single-storey extension to the east and flat roofs, occupies the north-west corner of the barn. The walls of the flat within the barn are blind and the east elevation of the upper-storey is built of brick. The flat is accessed externally by a doorway in the north gable wall; it comprises a single large kitchen dinner to the lower floor lit by a large window in the north wall fitted with double door/shutters. A winder stairs leads to an upper sitting room, bathroom and bedroom. The window sill of the northern window in the west wall is formed by a re-sited C19 stone sink, and a mock stone fireplace has been built against the north wall. Two of the beams in the ceiling of the ground floor display Baltic timber marks.

Pursuant to s1 (5A) of the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 ('the Act') it is declared that the C20 internal divisions, fittings and fixtures of the flat within the barn, are not of special architectural or historic interest.

Sources

Books and journals
Barnwell, P S, Giles, C, English Farmsteads 1750-1914, (1997), 58, 160
Collins, T, Baltic shipping marks on nineteenth-century timber: their deciphering and a proposal for an innovative characterization of old timber in Construction History, Vol. 31(2), (2015), 157-175
Russell, K, The Principles of Dairy Farming, (1962), 28-29, 38-40
Graham Brade-Birks, S, Modern Farming - A Practical Illustrated Guide, (1950), 64-70

Other
Ellergill House Barn, Embsay, Yorkshire Dales National Park, Historic Building Recording, JB Archaeology Ltd, July 2017
Historic Farmsteads Preliminary Character Statement: Yorkshire and the Humber Region, Parts 1 to 3 August 2006

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