Priest Park Farm Barn

Priest Park Farm Barn

A threshing barn of the 19th century, built of brick in Flemish stretcher bond with three courses of stretcher bond between each course of Flemish bond. The roof is covered in plain clay tile. The barn is a simple rectangle on plan.

Exterior

The north-east elevation has a hatch to the first floor hayloft, above a window to the stock area below. Both openings have been shortened but their original segmental arched openings remain in place. The doorways to the threshing bay have segmental arched heads and retain their arched top plank doors with wrought iron strap hinges on pintles. In the bay between the doors and the opening to the hayloft is a large diamond-shaped honeycomb arrangement of ventilation holes, with another to the northernmost bay. There is a chamfered brick plinth to the long elevations, and a projecting string course formed from three courses of brick runs under the eaves and at the same level around the gable ends of the barn. Three projecting courses run up the verges on the gable ends. To the north-west gable end, a later doorway and window opening have been introduced. The south-east gable end has a small opening at first floor level in the hayloft, and a blocked doorway under a segmental arch to the stock area below. The long elevation to the south-west has similar doorways and doors to those on the north-east side.

Interior

The barn is of three bays, supported on a series of tall pointed arches finished with bull-nose bricks forming curved edges. A fourth bay is separated from the rest of the barn by a full height brick wall apparently of the same date as the rest of the barn. This bay is divided horizontally into a stock area below with a hayloft above. The remaining three bays form the threshing barn. The gable end wall has a pilaster buttress of bull-nose bricks running from ground level to the ridge which supports the ridge piece at the top. Similar bull-nose bricks form stops to the thickness of the wall either side of the threshing doors. The roof structure has twin purlins and a diagonally set ridge piece; the pointed brick arches serve as trusses and so the remainder of the roof is of common rafters only. There are diagonal wind braces at either side of each brick arch.

History

Priest Park Farm was part of the historic estate of Lady Katherine Leveson, the daughter of Robert Dudley, son of the Earl of Leicester. The lands at Temple Balsall had, as the name implies, belonged to the Knights Templar and in the 14th century passed to the Order of St John, the Knights Hospitaller. When the Order was suppressed by Henry VIII at the Dissolution, the land was taken by the King. In 1543, he settled the manor of Temple Balsall on Catherine Parr on his marriage to her, but as she remained childless in her marriage after Henry's death, the lands reverted to the Crown on her own death. Having thus passed to Elizabeth I, the lands were then given to her favourite, the Earl of Leicester, from whom they eventually passed to his granddaughters, Lady Katherine Leveson and Lady Anne Holbourne, who with her husband provided funds for the restoration of the parish church in the 1660s and left an endowment to pay for a minister. When Anne died, Lady Katherine, of Trentham Hall in Staffordshire, bought up her sister's share of the manor. On her death in 1674, Lady Katherine left several legacies, including one for the erection of a hospital or almshouse, and another to found a school for twenty of the poorest boys of the parish. The first almswomen were admitted to the hospital in 1679. The hospital, primary school and surrounding lands remain in the ownership of the Lady Katherine Leveson Foundation to the present day, and are still in their original uses. The hospital and school are situated in Temple Balsall, a couple of miles from the site of Priest Park Farm, which may have been the home farm for the estate, and which also remains in the ownership of the Lady Katherine Leveson Foundation. Priest Park Farm House dates from circa 1710, and this barn was added in the 19th century.