Barn and Attached Stable on East Side of Sopwell Home Farm is a Grade II listed building in the St Albans local planning authority area, England. First listed on 18 October 1990. Barn, stable.

Barn and Attached Stable on East Side of Sopwell Home Farm

WRENN ID
shifting-arch-meadow
Grade
II
Local Planning Authority
St Albans
Constituency
St Albans MP: Daisy Cooper (LD)
Country
England
Date first listed
18 October 1990
Type
Barn, stable
Address
Barn and Attached Stable on East Side of Sopwell Home Farm, Cottonmill Lane
OS grid reference
TL 156 054
Coordinates
51.73567, -0.32718
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The barn and attached stable, located on the east side of Sopwell Home Farm, likely date from the first half of the 18th century. The structure is timber-framed with weatherboard cladding resting on brick plinths, while the right wall of the barn is constructed of red-brown brick in Flemish bond. It features plain tile roofs. The barn has three bays, with a central cart entry, and the lower three-bay stable on the left, which was probably originally a cowhouse. The front of the barn is obscured by a 20th-century covered yard that is not of special interest. The brick gable wall includes an eaves band and a stepped gable with brick-on-edge coping at the raised verge. The stable has a central stable door flanked by slatted windows, although most of the slats have been removed.

Inside the barn, there is a rear winnowing door opposite the cart entry that is boarded across. The frame consists of large scantling unjowelled posts with chamfered arch braces supporting the tie-beam, queen struts, clasped purlins, old rafters, and a later plank ridge-piece. The sole plate, mid-rails, replacement studs, and diagonal braces are also present, with the brick wall showing the position of former braces. The stable features unjowelled posts with long arched braces to the wall-plates and tie-beams, along with queen struts, clasped purlins, and old rafters. At the junction with the barn, there is a collared queen post truss. The left and front walls of the stable have 19th-century studding and braces. The framing of the barn shares similarities with that of the barn at Praewood Farm on Hemel Hempstead Road.

Local climate

Barn and Attached Stable on East Side of Sopwell Home Farm sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 710 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 89% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 87% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 31 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 61% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

More on this building

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  • Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
  • Flood risk assessment
  • Radon risk assessment
  • Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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  5. Sopwell Mill Grade II 703 m
  6. Sopwell Nunnery Ruins Grade II 1.0 km
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  8. 180 and 182, London Road Grade II 1.3 km
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  10. Cunningham Hill Farmhouse Grade II 1.4 km