Threshing Barn To East And Cartshed/Granary Range To North Of Foldyard At Elsham Top Farm

The threshing barn and adjoining cartshed/granary range at Elsham Top Farm were built in the 1840s for T G Corbett of Elsham Hall. The buildings feature chalk ashlar with a red brick plinth and a Westmorland green and grey slate roof. The structure is L-shaped, with the barn located to the east of the foldyard and the cartshed/granary range extending at right angles to the north.

The barn has two storeys and includes a tall elliptical-arched wagon entrance to the left of the center, flanked by single ground-floor doors with flattened basket arches. On the first floor, there are two pitching hatches with similar arches—one to the left with a boarded door and one to the right with glazing bars. A door at the right end has a timber lintel, and all arches are adorned with finely-cut chalk voussoirs. The eaves are stepped brick, and the roof is hipped.

The cartshed/granary range forms the right return of the barn and features nine first-floor openings. There are seven ground-floor cart openings with flattened basket arches supported on chamfered piers to the left, along with a round-headed door and four flattened basket-arched openings with part-glazed boarded ventilation hatches to the right. The first floor has similar openings with slatted hatches and inserted brick sills. A later outshut in the center is of no special interest.

At the rear, facing the foldyard, the barn has blocked entrances, while the cartshed/granary range features three doors, four ground-floor openings, and seven first-floor openings, all with surrounds and hatches similar to the external face. The adjoining ranges to the south of the barn and cartshed/granary range are of no special interest. This is a particularly large and well-constructed range of chalk farm buildings, likely the latest in the Wolds built with this material and the only known example in ashlar rather than hammer-dressed stone. The cartshed/granary is currently disused and in serious disrepair, with part of the roof collapsed at the time of resurvey.