Rook Hall Barn

Rook Hall Barn

A threshing barn with ancillary extensions, constructed around 1523 and extended in the 18th and 19th centuries.

The barn is timber framed, built from locally sourced oak felled in or around 1523, and rests on a brick plinth. The external walls are clad in weatherboarding, comprising some 18th-century elm boards and 19th or 20th-century pine boards, with patches of galvanized iron sheets on the east elevation. The north gable retains an area of daub plaster that predates the weatherboarding. The roofs are covered in corrugated fibre-cement sheets, except for areas of pantiles on the western roof slope and elsewhere.

The building is aligned approximately north-south and comprises five bays. The central bay historically functioned as a threshing floor, with a full-height central doorway facing east towards the farmhouse. Extensions have been added to the north, west and south sides.

The east elevation displays the five bays of the barn clad in a patchwork of 18th and later weatherboard, concrete patches, and galvanised iron sheets. Small openings (former access hatches now largely unglazed) appear at the north and south ends, with a pair of doors hung on 19th-century hinges at the centre. The barn stands on nine courses of red brick laid in English bond, with areas of repair and newer courses in Flemish bond towards the centre. At the right is the eastern wall of the nag stable with original weatherboards and a plank-and-batten door whose ironmongery may have been produced on site. The stable stands on a lower plinth laid in Flemish bond and is roofed in pantiles. At the left is the remaining single storey of the 16th-century stable, clad in 19th or 20th-century weatherboard with a corrugated metal roof, also standing on a lower Flemish-bond plinth.

The weatherboarded northern gable of the barn is attached to a two-storey nag stable and a single-storey gig house. The nag stable has a gable wall to the north clad in weatherboard, with a single unglazed wooden window at ground-floor level. The gig house has lost its historic external walls and doors; until the end of 2023 the pantiled roof of the nag stable continued over it, but the roof coverings were removed late that year.

Over the two northern bays of the western elevation, the barn roof is covered in pantiles which extend over the attached cart lodge with a slight change in pitch. Some weatherboarding has been lost from the return elevation on the north side of the cart lodge, which is open-sided on the west. The central bay and the one adjoining it to the south form a large waggon porch, developed from an earlier Georgian feature into its present form with a relatively shallow roof at some point in the 20th century. The porch and the three southern bays have roofs covered in corrugated fibre-cement. At the south-eastern corner is the corn hole, which projects beyond the southern gable and connects to the 16th-century stable. It is weatherboarded with a doorway on its southern face and a roof partly covered in pantiles and partly corrugated sheets.

The southern gable adjoins the 16th-century stable at ground-floor level and is otherwise clad in weatherboards. The stable has a shallow-pitched roof with a squat gable facing south, clad in weatherboards from the 18th through to the late 20th century. It has horizontal windows on the east, south and west sides, and a doorway on the east wall.

Internally, the principal barn space is divided into five bays by four open trusses. Principal posts with a 25cm² scantling and jowled heads are tenoned to tie beams. Cranked arch braces support all tie beams except two removed in the 20th century. There are two tiers of jowled queen posts; the first with arch braces to the collar and arched wind braces to the side purlin; the upper tier clasps the purlin and is pegged to the collar. Full-height studs tenoned to wall plates and sole plates line the east and west walls, except for the central entrance bays. The soffit of the central western bay shows a series of mortices indicating studs previously existed here. The central eastern bay has an unpegged mortice for a removable locking bar to secure the doors.

The internal face of the eastern wall shows a blocked pedestrian doorway in the northernmost bay from the 1523 phase. A later doorway was inserted in the western wall south of the entrance, providing access to the corn hole.

At the barn corners are drooping braces between posts, tie beams and wall plates—features more common in northern Suffolk. Most original sole plates survive and, where not waney edged, are chamfered with stops at each principal post. Throughout the barn are visible carpenters' assembly marks and possibly contemporary apotropaic marks including taper burns and scratched initials.

At the north-west corner is a late 19th or early 20th-century threshing machine produced by the Suffolk firm Boby.

The cart horse stable at the south end retains its original wall plates, tie beams and jowled principal posts. Pegging visible internally may have corresponded with a fixed hay rack, now lost. The loft joists are Georgian; the studwork and bracing are 19th century. There is a 19th-century brick floor with drainage channel. The roof structure and covering are mid to late 20th century.

The nag stable at the north end was built against the formerly external wall of the north gable. Its addition in the 18th century, prior to or perhaps as part of the expansion of weatherboarding around the barn's external walls, has preserved the earlier external wall surface of the upper gable: the plaster daub. The daub is keyed to vertical wattles tied to widely spaced laths nailed into the external face of the studs. The stable has two storeys with a beaten-earth floor; the stalls have been removed to leave a single space. The common studs on the north wall have been renewed in the 19th century. In the north-east corner is a hatch in the ceiling, accessed by simple rungs nailed to the wall. The hay-loft joists above do not connect to the north gable wall of the barn, leaving a gap through which hay could be passed directly into mangers below.

The early-Victorian cart lodge at the northern end of the western elevation shows an exposed timber frame internally, with hewn elm tie beams and common rafters of machine-sawn softwood and elm poles, some retaining their bark.

The waggon porch and its associated lean-to retain some Georgian timbers alongside a larger proportion of post-1955 rebuilt timber structure.

The framing of the corn hole is visible internally, along with the redundant doorway connecting it to the barn interior.