The Barley Barn, 40 Metres North West Of Cressing Temple Farmhouse

The Barley Barn, situated 40 metres north-west of Cressing Temple Farmhouse

A timber-framed barn of early 13th-century origin, substantially altered in the early 16th and 17th centuries. The structure is plastered and weatherboarded, with a roof of handmade red plain tiles and a plinth of red brick in irregular bond. It measures 38 metres long, 14 metres wide and 15 metres high, comprising 7 bays aligned north-east to south-west, with 2 aisles and a midstrey to the south-east.

The south-east elevation features great doors, 4 plain loading doors and one small light with diagonal leading. The north-east end has 20th-century double doors and one slatted vent on each side. The north-west elevation has great doors and scattered 20th-century fenestration. A gablet hip terminates the south-west end, with full hips to the north-east and over the midstrey.

The original structure is fully documented with measured drawings and perspective details in C.A. Hewett's "The Development of Carpentry, 1200-1700, an Essex Study" (1969, pages 22-32, 55-8, 171, 188), where radio-carbon dating places it around 1200. Dendrochronological analysis of one core indicates construction soon after 1220 (Fletcher, Tapper and Morris, "Vernacular Architecture" 16, 1985, 41).

A major alteration, datable by comparison to other structures to the first half of the 16th century, saw the north-east bay reduced to a half-bay with hip. The walls were rebuilt with jowled posts and heavy studding with curved bracing trenched to the inside, featuring edge-halved and bridled scarfs in the wallplates. A crownpost structure was added to the existing roof, with plain crownposts down-braced to the tiebeams and axial braces to the collar purlin.

The midstrey is of early 17th-century construction, featuring jowled outer posts and unjowled inner posts, with primary straight bracing above the girts and no bracing below. It has a clasped purlin roof projecting on struts over the great doors.

Repairs and piecemeal replacements have been undertaken at various times from the 18th to the 20th centuries. Some arcade posts have been shored up to replace sills and plinths, leaving shoring notches visible in the posts. Some arcade posts and sections of arcade-plate are reinforced by bolted parallel timbers. A section of arcade plate opposite the midstrey, extending half a bay in each direction, has been replaced. The tiebeam of the truss to the north-east of the midstrey has been replaced, as have all parts except the arcade-posts of the next truss to the north-east. The lower ends of all passing-braces were removed in connection with replacement of the aisle walls; their former positions are deducible from notched-lap matrices and oblique trenches in the surviving structure.

An unusual feature is a pattern of auger holes high on the arcade-posts and arcade-braces, having no structural function, probably used for attachment of staging during original construction. Few other timber-framed buildings are so high as to be beyond the reach of ladders.

A small lean-to extension at the north corner was demolished in 1986.