Main Barn At Church Farm

MAIN BARN AT CHURCH FARM, DENNINGTON

This is an 18th-century timber-framed barn standing on a brick plinth, with weatherboarded walls and a corrugated iron roof over a stone flagged floor.

The barn is a four-bay structure without aisles. The threshing bay is positioned second from the east end and features opposed double doors in both north and south elevations, with a midstrey porch sheltering the north entrance. Two bays extend to the west of the threshing bay, and later lean-to extensions have been added to the south.

Externally, the walls are weatherboarded up to door height and plastered above. The east gable is clad in vertical boards. The east elevation contains a door flanked by two windows, while a single window sits beneath the gable in the west elevation.

The interior retains much of its original timber framing. The walls are constructed of closely spaced studs with plaster infill, supported on a wall plate carried by posts. Both the wall plate and posts support tie beams which are knee braced to the posts. The roof is of queen post construction without principal rafters, featuring clasped purlins and collars. The timbers are not substantial, and the tie beams have been reinforced at points of weakness by additional lengths of timber bolted to their undersides. The rafters rest on the wall plate and meet at the apex without a ridge piece. Intermittent collars run between rafters in the two western bays, some of recent date. Long windbraces are set diagonally against the rafters on both sides of the roof. Behind the rafters are horizontal 20th-century planks to which the corrugated iron roof sheets are attached. The porch has a hipped roof, two collars, and full-height double doors; the double doors to the north are lower. Immediately east of the entrances lies a half-height timber partition creating a separate space with access through the door in the east elevation, positioned beside the stone flagged threshing floor.

The barn forms a major component of an early farmstead which by the late 19th century comprised a late 16th-century farmhouse (listed Grade II), a possibly 17th-century granary and stables, and other structures. All three buildings appear on the 1889 Ordnance Survey map. Until the early 20th century, these buildings and one further structure north of the farmhouse constituted the whole of Church Farm. The barn's outline underwent changes in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through the addition and removal of lean-to structures to north and south, though its essential plan has remained constant since then. Substantially more buildings have been added to the farm during the 20th century, though the early structures survive.