Barn At Chithams Farm

This is a late 14th-century barn with late 18th-century and later 19th-century additions and alterations, and 20th-century repairs including reroofing. The structure is oak framed on a brick plinth with some later softwood, clad externally in softwood weatherboarding. Floors are flagstone in the central bay and concrete over asphalt in the flanking bays. The roof is covered in concrete tiles.

Plan

The original building is a rectangular three-bay aisled barn with a porch positioned to the west of the central bay. Large double doors face an opposing, slightly smaller opening in the east elevation. At the north end stands a late 18th-century two-storey extension, with a mid to late 19th-century outshut attached to its north gable end. This north extension is linked by a door on the west side to a single-storey stable range aligned west to east.

Exterior

The barn roof is half-hipped to the south, but continues straight over the two-storey late 18th-century extension to the north, which is stepped back from the original three-bay barn on both west and east sides. South of this extension, the barn has a centrally placed, almost full-height gabled porch containing late 19th-century double doors placed slightly off-centre, with a small pedestrian door immediately to the north. South of the junction with the garages, the late 18th-century extension contains an early 20th-century door and six-light window. At the west end of the south elevation is a 20th-century half-glazed door with a twelve-light window above, and below the eaves is a 20th-century casement window. The west door gives access to the room south of the west porch.

In the east elevation, the roof is raised over the double doors. The walls to either side of the entrance contain extensive 20th-century glazing: small casements to the south and translucent sheets of corrugated plastic to the north. The late 18th-century extension to the north is recessed on this side, with a casement window to both ground and first floors. The north elevation has a door to the hayloft under the gable and above the outshut. The garages attached to the north end of the west elevation have large 20th-century up-and-over steel doors.

Interior

The most complete wall is to the east. This has regularly spaced studs between principal jowled posts, with downward braces from the posts passing on the outside of the wall studs. The posts support the aisle plate, on which the aisle ties rest. A mortice just below the jowl of each main post originally housed the end of a passing brace that was trenched into the aisle tie; these braces are now lost. From the aisle posts, curved braces support the arcade plate and straight braces support the tie beam. The aisle plate has been cut through to allow insertion of the later large doors. At the south end, the aisle plate contains a scarf joint repaired with an iron tie. Two telegraph poles have been inserted to support the arcade plate in the central bay.

To the west, an internal wall is formed by the partition separating the aisle from the main body of the barn. To either side of the porch are massive jowled posts supporting the arcade plate, which has been cut through and removed above the opening to the porch. A tie beam has been inserted across the opening, with either end resting on the tie beams that cross the body of the barn. South of the porch is a curved brace from post to arcade plate, while a later straight brace from both north and south posts supports the porch tie beam. From the north post a straight brace supports the tie beam across the body of the barn, but this is missing from the south post. South of the porch, reused studs are interspersed with later straight sawn studs. The wall is largely weatherboarded, but at ground-floor level the panels between studs are infilled with bricks of different sizes. North of the porch the construction is similar, but wattle and daub has also been used to fill the panels.

The store room south of the porch, now the seed store, has an external wall of studs infilled with brick, and the walls are lined with tin. There is a plank and batten door from the porch into the store room. North of the porch is the apple store, lined with slatted storage racks. The walls are partly lined with wattle and daub. The south wall of the barn has mill-sawn softwood studs, but retains its early posts, including the central post and tie beam. In the north wall the panels below the midrail have been removed, but the central post and aisle posts remain in place.

The roof is of crown-post construction, with the crown plate supporting collars to each pair of rafters, although some collars are lost. The rafters below the arcade plate are not continuations of those above. The roof was later remodelled with one set of purlins added below the original collars and the crown-post braces. These are clasped by regularly spaced collars and are additionally supported by even later struts from the tie beams. A purlin was also added to the east aisle. The construction of the south gablet remains intact, but the north extension was constructed by removing the hipped north end of the roof and adding new rafters to arcade height.

The removal of the original north wall below the midrail has opened the barn at ground-floor level to the late 18th-century two-storey extension. The north gable-end wall is boarded at ground-floor level, but in the loft the studwork is exposed above the tie beam. The ground-floor ceiling has a reused chamfered axial beam and machined softwood joists. The interior walls of the garages to the west are boarded, and both the loft and garage roofs are modern.

Historical Context

Chithams Farm is an isolated farmstead west of the village of Ramsden Heath, consisting of a farmhouse, barn, and a dovecot modified for use as a shed. The house, whose historic core is a timber-framed hall and cross-wing, occupies the north-west corner of a moated enclosure, while the barn is immediately to the east but outside the moat. The moat causeway is positioned off-centre across the moat's east arm to provide a direct link between the main entrances of house and barn, emphasising the significant and probably contemporary relationship between the two. The date of the moat is uncertain, but the barn and house can be closely dated by their constructional detail to the late 14th century.

The late 14th-century three-bay barn would originally have had open aisles but no porch. The arcade plate to the west was later cut through to create the present high opening, and it seems probable that this work was carried out in the 16th century, in line with other Essex barns. The next main phase of work was undertaken in the late 18th or early 19th century, but before 1838, the date the Tithe Map was produced. The map shows that the barn had by then been extended to the north and a further range of stables added at the north-west corner, linked to the extension. The latter contained two horse stalls with loft over. The stable range is now used as garages. Other modifications to the barn undertaken before 1838 included rebuilding the west wall, reusing its original timbers to construct an internal partition on the line of the west arcade, thereby creating storage rooms to north and south of the porch. The late 14th-century roof was also reinforced with the insertion of side purlins, and the whole structure raised on a brick plinth. In 1874 an outshut was added to the north gable end of the pre-1838 north extension, shown on the Ordnance Survey map of that date.

The barn was again repaired and refurbished in the 1960s or 1970s when the building was reroofed in Leighton concrete roof tiles; raking struts were inserted between the tie beams and side purlins to give additional support. At the north end the roof over the loft was completely rebuilt using modern softwood, and a new staircase was added; the north wall of the barn was removed below the midrail. At the south end of the barn a mezzanine floor was inserted, accessed by steps against the west partition wall.

Significance

The barn forms part of a late 14th-century farmstead. Its medieval fabric remains substantially intact, including its crown-post roof, and retains constructional elements that provide evidence of its date. The late 18th-century additions and modifications illustrate the evolution of agricultural practice in the early years of the agricultural revolution. The barn forms an important and unusually surviving group with the contemporary listed house and scheduled moat, illustrating the emergence of a class of prosperous free peasant farmers in the 14th and 15th centuries.