Barn at Brook House Farm

This barn at Brook House Farm is a farm outbuilding dating to the late 17th century, with alterations and additions made in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries. It’s constructed of coursed squared gritstone with ashlar gritstone dressings, a single stone ridge stack, plain gables, and a stone slated roof. The south elevation is single-story with overlofts, consisting of 8 bays, with the 5 bays to the west remodelled and raised to serve as a cowhouse with overlofts. At the left-hand end, there are two ground-floor doorways with massive lintels and surrounds, keyed into the surrounding masonry, with planked doors. There are three tiers of slit vents to this range, and a near full-height double doorway beneath a shallow segmental arch. The door opening has an internal rebate for original doors. To the right, there are three more bays, the first with an inserted doorway, flush jambs, and a shallow lintel. Further to the right, a doorway has massive keyed jambs, a deep lintel, and a plank door. The next bay has a segmentally-arched double doorway, formerly a cartshed, with ashlar quoins, voussoirs, keyblock, and planked doors. Adjacent stone steps provide access to a first-floor tack room, containing a doorway with a massive surround, a plank door, and a two-light flush-mullioned window with saddle bars. A stone chimney stack serves the tack room hearth. Within a stone stairway is a kennel recess with a henhouse above. The right-end bay has a wide stable doorway with a keyed surround and a massive lintel. To the right, there is an inserted 19th-century window. The right-end gable has a partially blocked taking-in loft doorway, and the left-end gable has a taking-in doorway beneath a timber lintel. 19th and 20th-century monopitch lean-to additions are present on the rear elevation. Inside, the 5-bay portion to the left has 4 king post trusses, with curved, upward-sweeping braces. A ridge purlin is set diagonally into the notched head of the king post. An inventory of the adjacent Brook House Farmhouse from 1681 refers to “the new barn.” The barn is a complex, multi-purpose farm building, and its form and adaptation demonstrate changing patterns of agriculture in upland Derbyshire.