Threshing barn at Whitehouse Farm

A late-C18 threshing barn, with C20 extensions. The C20 extensions are excluded. The associated stables and agricultural buildings of the C18 and C19 are much altered and also excluded from the listing.

MATERIALS: the barn is timber framed, with brick gable ends, stone plinth and is clad in weatherboard.

PLAN: the barn forms part of a group of buildings arranged around four sides of a roughly square courtyard. The barn makes up part of the NW range.

The barn has a T-shaped plan.

EXTERIOR: the barn is a high, three-bay structure, with a steeply-pitched roof. It is timber-framed, and stands on a brick plinth with some stone, which varies in height, and is highest to the rear. The long elevations are clad in horizontally-laid weatherboarding above the plinth, and the roofs are covered in plain clay tiles. To the south-eastern elevation, facing in to the farm yard, the wide central bay has high, double timber doors, and a small, square, timber casement window has been inserted in to the upper part of the left-hand bay. The gable ends are clad in red brick. The rear has a wide, full-height projecting gabled porch with full-width double-doors.

INTERIOR: the barn’s timber frame is visible internally, and appears almost entirely intact. The frame is formed from close-studded uprights, with high midrails and diagonal bracing. The western bay is divided horizontally by a timber floor supported on brick piers to either side, and a central upright timber post. There is no vertical partition. The roof structure has trusses which stand on jowled upright posts, and are formed from roughly-chamfered tie beams, paired principal rafters, queen struts, a high collar and two tiers of butt purlins, all pegged. Diagonal braces extend from the uprights to the tie beams, lapped on, but probably original as they are respected by the chamfering. The roof retains its original common rafters. The central bay retains its threshing floor, which extends into the porch. An opening has been created in the south-western gable end to give access to the late-C20 extension.