Fishers Farm Barn

Fishers Farm Barn

A barn built in two phases during the 17th century, constructed of coursed squared stone with a corrugated iron roof, located in a large ancient orchard at Carlton and Chellington.

The building comprises a stable section with open loft to the east and an open barn to the west. The east-facing gable end, dating to the early or mid-17th century, is built with exceptional care using a distinctive pattern of larger stone courses alternating with smaller ones, creating a fine 'show' gable. This section features large quoins and a substantial doorway on the southern side leading into the stable, with a lantern niche internally in the adjacent wall. The building was extended westward by three bays, probably in the mid or later 17th century, with a double doorway to the south and an opposing single doorway. The original roof pitch was subsequently altered, with the side walls raised and the roof pitch widened, either at the time of extension or during the 18th century. The barn received a new roof in the 18th century; the present roof retains only scant remains of this work, with most being 20th-century replacement. A single-storey later extension extends to the south.

Substantial elements of the 17th-century structure survive, making this a five-bay stone barn of considerable architectural interest. The alternating bands of wide and narrow stones in the show gable end are particularly noteworthy.

The barn holds significant historical importance. It is situated on the site of Fishers Farm, marked on the first Ordnance Survey map and on an 18th-century map. In 1672, Gideon Fisher's house at Carlton was licensed for Congregational worship under the First Declaration of Indulgence, and this farm is very likely to have been that house, given its isolation from the village. The Fisher family had owned property in Carlton since at least the 15th century, when John Fisher was joint purchaser of Pakenham Wood in 1495, and appear in parish records as Esquires or Gentry. Gideon Fisher's house was one of only a very few places licensed for worship in Bedfordshire at that time.

The farm's connection to John Bunyan, the celebrated Nonconformist preacher and author of The Pilgrim's Progress, is strong and well-supported. Bunyan is known to have preached throughout the villages surrounding Bedford and baptised in the River Stour at Stevington, less than two miles away. It is highly likely that he preached in this barn in the 1670s and 1680s. The evidence strengthens after Bunyan's daughter Sarah married William Brown in 1686, two years before Bunyan's death. It is documented that Sarah and William married at St Cuthbert's, Bedford, in 1686, and the Brown family subsequently lived at Fishers. Gideon Fisher died in 1685 without known children, so the farm passed to William Brown and his wife. Carlton Baptist Meeting was later granted a licence to hold services in the barn at Fishers Farm. The connection is further confirmed by the documented residence of the Brown family at Fishers in the 18th century. Frances Bithrey, Bunyan's great-granddaughter through the Brown family, died at Fishers in 1803.

The barn is significant as the best-evidenced physical survival of places of worship associated with Bunyan, as all other original meeting houses connected to him have been substantially rebuilt or relocated. It reflects the difficulties and dangers faced by Dissenters' places of worship during the 'heroic times of Nonconformity' in the later 17th century, and thus represents an important survival in the nation's social and religious history.