Barn At Yew Tree Farm

Barn at Yew Tree Farm, Farnley Tyas

A barn built in 1671 with later additions, constructed of partly coursed rubble with a slate roof. The building is situated among a group of agricultural buildings and farm cottages loosely scattered across a large corner plot in the centre of the village of Farnley Tyas.

The main body of the barn is two storeys with four bays. A narrow recessed bay at the south end is stone slated with a mono-pitch roof rising to the ridge line on the west side of the barn.

The east-facing main front features a central tall arched cart entrance with a semi-circular dovecote flight hole above, fitted with a projecting stone cill. To the right are a 3-light wooden framed window and a door, followed by a small square window and another door. To the left is a further window, obscured by vegetation. Three pitching eyes are located at first floor level, one to the left and two to the right of the cart entrance. At the left end is an attached building set back from the main front, featuring a Tudor-arch doorway with an adjacent window. The stone lintel of this doorway bears the date 1671 and the initials IS within an incised border, with another window above. This building is partly overlapped by an adjoining cottage.

The north-west gable end, which faces the road, has three ground floor wooden framed 3-light windows. At the right side is an extension with a continuous catslide roof from the main roof, but with a butt joint to the main building, containing a single window and doorway. The main barn has large quoins at the corners.

The south-west face has a single storey extension to the left end with a small window high on the right return. A lean-to extension to the right has stone walls to each side, a corrugated asbestos roof supported on a central brick pillar, and an open front. Between the two extensions is a 3-light wood framed window at ground floor level and an opening at first floor level with wooden shutters. There are also two ventilation slits at different levels. To the right is a separate section with a stone slate roof and a doorway. A truncated chimney stack stands at the ridge end, with evidence of another, lower building that formerly extended to the front alongside the extant lean-to. At this end, the barn abuts the cottage to the right.

The interior contains king post trusses of relatively recent origin, as are the rafters and roof lining. The section to the south is divided internally from the main barn, as are the extensions on the west side.

The date of 1671 on the lintel is consistent with the barn's appearance; the stone slate roof probably formerly extended over the whole structure. The 1854 Ordnance Survey map shows an extension on the west side which may be the extant open-fronted lean-to. Later maps record the extension at the north end of the west side and further buildings, now demolished, at both the southern and northern ends of the barn.