Barn And Gin-Gang 100 Metres South West Of Finchale Abbey Farmhouse

This building is a barn and gin-gang located 100 meters south-west of Finchale Abbey farmhouse. It likely dates from the 17th century and incorporates some medieval materials, with alterations made in the 18th and 19th centuries. The structure is made of thinly-rendered sandstone rubble, featuring quoins and ashlar dressings, and has a pantile roof. It has one high storey with five bays and a low front extension, while the gin-gang is situated at the rear.

The barn has wide opposed threshing doors with chamfered jambs, supported by old wood lintels and newer beams. The sill of the front door is elevated above the current ground level, and both doors are partly blocked, with smaller boarded doors added beneath the wood lintels. The 19th-century front extension has a half-hipped catslide roof resting on rubble piers, which are blocked with 20th-century shuttering.

On the left side, there is a door with a sill above ground level, also under an old wood lintel, and three tiered vent slits in the gable peak, aligned towards the rear of the current gable center. The right return gable features five holes for purlins from a demolished adjacent building, along with a vent slit in the gable peak. The rear elevation displays two rows of vent slits to the right of the door, and four low octagonal piers, likely medieval, that form the gin-gang with low walls in between. A sawn-off beam in the barn wall indicates that the gin-gang was once roofed. Inside, there are re-used tie-beam trusses with wedges supporting two rows of purlins, and diagonal mortices in the soffits of the tie-beams for braces to the wall from its former use. There is no ridge piece present.