Tithe barn at The Priory and attached outbuildings

A Rectory tithe barn and attached outbuildings, dating from the 15th century or earlier, originally belonging to the prior and community of Wymondley Priory. The barn is timber-framed, resting on stone sill walls which have been replaced externally with old red brickwork. It is clad in dark weatherboarding and has a vast, steep-pitched roof of old red tiles, hipped with gablets.

The barn is exceptionally large and symmetrical, measuring approximately 102 feet by 39 feet externally, and running east-west within the moated enclosure which also contained the former priory, situated to the north of the barn. Later hip-roofed lean-tos are attached to each end; the western lean-to is open-fronted, linked to other low outhouses around a small courtyard. An old wall extends northwards from the barn to the former monks’ cemetery wall. A gabled porch is centrally positioned within the aisle on both the north and south sides of the barn. A later porch is located on the north side near the west end, with part of the aisle there now enclosed and open to the outside.

The interior features heavy, square section arcade posts supported by peninsular oak plates on the stone sill walls, dividing the aisles into compartments. The structure includes arched braces to the arcade, long curved braces to heavy cambered tie-beams; two clasped-purlins to each roofslope of the nave, carried by collars and heavy inclined straight queen-posts. Aisle-ties each support a clasped purlin with an inclined straight queen-post. Straight tension-braces are positioned above mid-height in the end walls. The aisle walls are infill with a pattern of heavy studs and quartered poles, not designed for wattle infill, suggesting that the barn may originally have been weatherboarded.

Heavy flat rafters feature a mortise just above the wallplate. The main longitudinal timbers are jointed using an unusual scarf joint—edge-halved, with a bridled butt joint for the lower third, and the upper third extending as a tenon into the middle, secured by edge-pegs.