Mustardpot Barn

Mustardpot Barn

A timber-framed barn with a red brick plinth, standing on five bays. The porch and north gable are rendered, while the remaining external walls are weatherboarded except for the east lean-to sections, which are red brick. The lean-to roofs are covered in slate, the earlier barn with modern pantiles, and the section to the south of the porch in 19th-century pantiles.

The building comprises five bays with a west-facing porch to the central bay, flanked by lean-to structures occupying the full length of the building. Two distinct but adjoining lean-to structures are also present against the north end of the east elevation.

The west elevation is dominated by a full-height porch with a steeply pitched roof glazed in the gable and the area previously occupied by large double doors. The slated roofs of both lean-to structures rise to the eaves of the barn, which contains two roof-lights to the north of the porch and one to the south. The roof-line of the south section is lower than that to the north. To the north, the weatherboarded external wall contains one full-height tripartite window. To the south are three casement windows with boarding patterned to simulate stable doors. Below the eaves line in the north gable are two tiers of four-light windows with lights separated by mullions, and three small windows in a line under the gable. The two lean-to structures to the east are distinguished by a clean straight join and differing brickwork—both laid in Flemish bond but the southern section darker red—and by fenestration patterns. The weatherboarded east elevation to the south has three tall casements to the ground floor with the pattern repeated in smaller casements under the eaves at first floor. The weatherboarding continues on the south gable end with a symmetrical fenestration pattern of two two-tier windows rising under the gable, the upper tier a narrow band of three lights with taller three-light casements below. At ground floor are two three-light casements. French doors open to either end of the east lean-to and at the south end of the south-west lean-to.

The porch sides contain studs interrupted by diagonal braces. Its common rafter roof has collars clasping purlins. The three-bay early-16th-century barn remains a single open space with only a substantial brick chimney stack, tapered and piercing the ridge within the central bay, as an internal insertion. The bays are marked by jowled wall posts braced to tie beams by knee braces and new replacement arched braces. The tie beams support queen posts, braced to purlins and cambered collars. The two central trusses appear original, but the south end of the roof has been reconstructed with additional collars. The north end of the roof above the queen posts is of half-hipped construction.

The frame of the west wall between the posts is of similar construction to the porch sides, with eight studs to each bay interrupted by straight diagonal braces, suggesting reconstruction when the porch was built. The infill has been removed, leaving only the timber frame. The outer posts of each bay are also braced to the wall plate. The outer posts of the north bay of the east wall have arched braces to the wall plate passing in front of four substantial studs (at the time of the 2007 survey embedded in the concrete floor) rising from a new sill beam to wall plate. The central bay was the original opening onto the farmyard; the posts either side have no mortices for wall plate braces and the four studs are later insertions. The third bay contains a wide opening, perhaps originally constructed when the threshing floor was moved to this bay. The lintel of this opening, set just below a pair of arched braces from posts to wall plate, carries four short studs. The north gable-end wall contains studs of the same form as those in the north-east bay, with arched braces from corner posts to tie beam, the latter supporting queen posts and four studs, closing the truss above the tie. Wall studs coincide with window mullions, concealing them from inside. Additional spaces to east and west of the original three-bay barn have been created within the rebuilt lean-to structures, that to the west visible through the timber frame.

The neathouse and stable have been subdivided into five spaces, three accessed from a corridor, the entrance to which is in the centre of the south wall of the early barn, and two from the kitchen housed in the lean-to to the west. The timber frame of the neathouse and stable is exposed in the kitchen, with one panel of laths with clay render retained. The floor here is of reclaimed gault brick.

The first floor is reached from stairs set against the south wall of the early three-bay barn. It contains three spaces and a short corridor. The south room has a roughly hewn round-sectioned tie beam, slightly cambered, with queen studs. Jowled posts with a tie beam between below the south wall window may belong to the lower-roofed 18th-century structure, while a full-height jowled post in the east wall (bathroom) probably belongs to the fourth bay of the early-17th-century extension to the three-bay barn.