Barn at 1 and 3 Black Abbey Street and unnumbered barn adjoining the yard behind the former Red Lion inn

Barn at 1 and 3 Black Abbey Street and unnumbered barn adjoining the yard behind the former Red Lion inn

This complex comprises two late-18th-century farm buildings, one with possible 16th-century origins.

The main barn at 1 and 3 Black Abbey Street is a combination barn of buff sandstone with stone roof, arranged with a central threshing floor and shippons with haylofts at both ends. It fronts Black Abbey Street adjacent to the former Red Lion inn, with a yard to the rear, and is abutted to the west by two terraces of shops and cottages.

The north front, which faces the street, is watershot with peeling paint. It has a central cart opening and shippon openings at the margins, between which are stacked windows with stone lintels and sills. The cart opening features a brick depressed arch with historical settling above it and an inserted commercial frontage. The shippon doorways have been blocked to form windows. All windows are replacements. The splay to the cart-way is concreted. The roof is of graduated stone flags with a timber ogee gutter supported on iron stays.

The west wall is abutted by number 5, with a small portion of slobbered-rubble gable visible and open verge. The east wall is blind and gabled, built of random rubble with alternating quoins at the left angle and open verge. The south wall is of random rubble. Its central cart opening has alternating quoins at the left jamb and a brick pillar at the right, with a steel lintel over random-coursed blocking. Some brickwork is visible above the lintel, with render above this up to the eaves. To the right of the cart opening is temporary timber shoring. The right-hand shippon doorway is partially blocked by a brick pillar with a narrow replacement door. The left-hand shippon doorway, including an overlight, is blocked in random-coursed stone. At the left the barn abuts a stables and hay barn. The roof is of graduated stone flags.

The interior has not been inspected but is believed to retain the original roof structure and floor surface. The east wall is abutted by a stone farmyard gatepost with pointed head.

The second structure is a storeyed barn in the Red Lion yard, comprising stables with hay-loft over and basement shippon, also late-18th-century with possible 16th-century origins. It is built of buff sandstone and forms the west side of the yard to the rear of the Red Lion inn.

The front faces east and is of watershot stone in diminishing courses. A central opening has an inserted steel lintel and replacement doors. Either side are blocked former windows. Above is a square pitching door with stone surround. The roof is of corrugated asbestos cement. The north wall abuts the rear of number 5 Black Abbey Street. The west wall is largely obscured by an outshut to number 5 and by foliage. The gabled south wall is largely obscured by ivy but retains the monopitch scar of the roof of a former adjoining building. A blocked opening at the bottom right appears to be a former window. Below this wall, in the face of the retaining wall of the car park to the east, is the entrance to the shippon, which has a moulded lintel and jambs of large, squared blocks.

The interior shows purlins and trusses that appear to be machine-sawn. The north wall is plastered, with traces of plaster or limewash on the other walls. The hay-loft floor is missing. The stone-flag floor retains the stabling drainage channel.

The shippon occupies the footprint of the barn above and internally measures 24 feet by 15 feet. It comprises five stalls with a feeding passage to the east, separated from the stalls by a low wall pierced with small square holes. There is a blocked hole in the ceiling at the north end of the feeding passage. To the west is the rear-walk and manure passage, with a two-inch step down from the standings to this passage. Four cross-walls define the stalls; each has a narrow arch over the feeding passage, an arched opening with a sill in the side-wall of the stall, and a wide basket archway for the rear walk, supported by corbels in the rear wall. The walls are slender and constructed of narrow-coursed stone. The left-hand side of each stall has a bolt for tying a stake for a tethering ring. The stone-flag ceiling forms the floor of the stable above. Behind each cross-wall is a square niche in the west wall within which is a narrow ventilation slit; a similar opening is blocked in the south wall.