Bexwell Barn, Bexwell, Norfolk: Analysis and Interpretation
Author(s): Olivia Horsfall Turner
Bexwell Barn is a building constructed of rubble, carstone, high-quality ashlar blocks, reused medieval worked-stone features and brick of various periods. The fabric evidence is particularly complex and ambiguous, while archival sources are almost completely silent. The building has been interpreted either as the surviving 15th-century gatehouse of Bexwell Hall (Pevsner 1999; Emery 2000) or as 16th-century lodgings constructed from post-Dissolution spolia (Heywood, 1996). Given the limitations of the known sources, it is not possible to provide a definitive account of the building, but detailed fabric analysis and an investigation of archival and map evidence has resulted in a different interpretation to those proposed previously. A detailed interrogation of the fabric evidence and close consideration of archival materials suggests that the building was constructed for nondomestic purposes in the very late 18th or early 19th century, probably incorporating dismantled remains, and possibly standing remains, of the manor house of Bexwell Hall and possibly spolia from other sites.
- Report Number:
- 36/2012
- Series:
- Research Report
- Pages:
- 32
- Keywords:
- Medieval Gatehouse
