Cruck Barn

Cruck Barn, Broadwas, Little Green

This barn, formerly a longhouse, dates from approximately 1496. It is constructed with a timber frame of wattle and daub infill, later supplemented with brick infill, clapboard and corrugated metal cladding, beneath a plain tiled roof.

Originally, the building comprised a full-height hall with soot-blackened timbers to the east of the current portion. This hall section contained at least two bays with decorative, cusped timbers to a central truss and similarly cusped wind braces. This eastern portion has now been demolished. The hall may have extended further with an additional bay and service rooms on the site of the present early-19th-century farmhouse. The remaining structure retains its original two-storey plan across three bays with paired cruck blades. The western bay was added at a later date and may re-use cruck blades from the eastern end. The two western trusses both have base crucks which do not meet at the ridge, probably indicating a former half-hipped roof line when the building was thatched.

Externally, the north face and western gable end are clad in 18th or 19th-century clapboard above a plinth of rubble stone and 19th-century brick. The south side is clad in corrugated metal with some brick infill to the timber frame at the south-eastern corner. The east gable end, formerly an internal end wall of the hall, retains a pair of cruck blades with collar, tie, yolk and cruck spurs. The infill combines wattle and daub, timber boards and some soot blackening despite exposure to weather since circa 1984. A 19th-century plank door is set in an original late-16th-century doorway.

Internally, all trusses have ties, collars and yolks jointed with dovetail joints. The upper truss sides face east, save for the later western gable end truss. The trenched purlins to each side of the roof are original, with peg holes for the original common rafters. The side walls each have a central upright per bay with mortice holes for cross-axial beams supporting the upper floor. Each side retains its original wall plate and mid-rail.

The building was downgraded from Grade II* to Grade II on 18th March 2008 following the demolition of the hall bay at the eastern end, which constituted the most architecturally significant portion and roughly a quarter of the building's fabric. The remaining structure nevertheless represents a notable example of a cruck-framed building with principal framing elements intact.