Oakfield Farm Barn

This is a late 16th or early 17th century farm building, originally a barn, with later additions and 19th and 20th century alterations. It was empty and disused at the time of inspection in 1999. The building has oak timber framing set on a low red brick plinth, with softwood external horizontal boarding and a corrugated iron sheet covering to the half-hipped roof.

The barn is a five-bay range aligned north-west to south-east, with an added fifth bay and advanced gabled porch at the north-west end, giving an L-shaped plan. The north-east side has a double doorway to bay 2 from the left, a later single doorway inserted at bay 4, and the advanced porch with double doors to bay 5. The north-west side has a single doorway inserted at bay 1. The gables are plain and have half hips.

Inside, the barn retains a near-complete timber frame featuring principal vertical posts with jowled heads, which carry wall-plates jointed with face-halved and bladed scarfs. Tie beams span the building and are fixed with full-lap dovetails and morticed tenons to the jowl heads. These tie beams are braced to the wall posts and support raking struts that carry collar beams. The collar beams in turn support single side purlins, clasped between the collars and the principal rafters, which are reduced in thickness above the collar level. Bays 1 and 2 have double wind bracing, bays 3 and 4 each have a single brace. Rafters are half-lapped and pegged. A sole plate, mid-rails and wall plates are drilled on their lower faces and grooved on their upper faces, designed to receive staves for wattle and daub panels – none of which now survive. Vertical studs are present on the walls, with straight braces notched over them in the end walling. Bays 1 and 2 have wide oak boarding internally, with bay 1 containing a timber trough fitted along the end wall and subdivided by a stall partition. A closed partition separates bays 2 and 3, while collar and tie beams between bays 4 and 5 feature mortice sockets and drilled holes for former studs and wattle poles of the end wall.

The farm, including the barn, was shown on a 1766 county map and the 1834 Richardson map of Stevenage. Ordnance Survey maps of 1884 and 1889 identified it as Fairview Farm, positioned as the south-western boundary of a farmyard, with an L-shaped range to the north-east and a house set further east. The barn provides a near-complete example of late 16th or early 17th century timber framing, displaying carpentry detailing typical of Hertfordshire, and retains evidence of later extension and adaptation for animal husbandry.