Kingsbury Barn

Kingsbury Barn is a monastic barn dating back to the 1390s, with 19th-century extensions and infilling to the northeast wall. It was built by Abbot John Moot to store produce from the Kingsbury grange for St Albans Abbey. The barn is timber-framed and clad in weatherboard, with a flint plinth featuring padstones and re-used pieces of brick and tile. The northeast brick plinth was constructed in the 19th century. It has a plain tile hipped roof.

This impressively large barn originally consisted of five bays, with an aisle and a central porch projection along the southwest side. The northeast aisle has been removed, but one corner post survives within the wall of a link to an attached 19th-century building, along with the original arcade, now infilled with 19th-century studs and weatherboarding. Arcade posts feature hoisting notches, and there are braces to tiebeams and arcade plates. Passing braces provide double-bracing from the aisle posts to the tiebeams. The barn retains an intact common rafter roof; the collars of the central bay are supported by a collar purlin braced onto plain crown posts at either end. The end bays are hipped. The end walls retain original studs for large panels and braced mid rails. Some original studding remains in the wall of the southwest aisle, and there are low flint and brick spur walls between the bays. The porch projection incorporates dragon ties, an inserted loft, and a gable with dovecote holes in the 19th-century weatherboarding. Other 19th-century doors and shuttered openings are present in the northeast wall.

To either side of the porch, there are early to mid-19th-century lean-to extensions with slate roofs. The extension to the left has altered 20th-century brick and weatherboard walling, while the extension to the right is weatherboarded and retains 19th-century stable partitions and drinking troughs. A similar stable extension is present at the southeast end, but under a plain tile roof swept down from the main hip. Part of this extension has been altered to provide a passage through to the barn, and a link connects it to an attached 19th-century brick range. The 19th-century brick range itself is not of special interest, but the link is, as it retains the corner post of the northeast aisle. A further 19th-century lean-to extension is situated at the northwest end. The attached 20th-century concrete ramp and silos are not considered of special interest.

The barn is an imposing medieval structure, with its timber frame largely intact, despite the removal of the northeast aisle. Of particular interest are the passing braces and the use of crown posts only in the centre bay. Modifications and extensions demonstrate the barn’s continued use as a farm building, originally for the Abbey, and later for Kingsbury Manor.