Barn At Park Place Farm

Barn at Park Place Farm, Remenham

This is a barn of late 19th or early 20th century date, built in red brick with bands of grey glazed brick and a red tile roof with decorative ridge tiles.

The building is rectangular in plan on both ground and attic floors, with a half-hipped roof. Its outer walls are divided into bays—five across each gable end and ten along the north and south flanks—by flat brick pilasters rising from a continuous chamfered base to a nail-head eaves cornice. Bands of grey brick run through the pilasters, and window and door heads have alternating grey headers.

The west gable end, which faces a lane and forms the principal elevation, displays considerable decorative moulded and chamfered brickwork. The outer bays contain inset fielded panels within a border of moulded brick. The inner bays have similar panels above which are circular windows with radial glazing bars, deeply recessed beneath moulded brick hoods. The central bay contains two segmental-headed doorways placed one above the other, providing access to the main floor and hayloft respectively. The doors are of vertical timber boards, with the lower door having a glazed overlight. The upper doorway breaks through the eaves line of the roof hip to form a large gablet or half-dormer.

The east gable elevation is a slightly simplified version of the same design. The long north and south elevations have segmental-headed windows with glazed louvres. The south elevation contains a single segmental-headed doorway and a large double doorway beneath a timber lintel. Small rooflights in the main roof slopes may be a later insertion.

Inside, the barn comprises two very large spaces: the main barn at ground level with a rough lime floor and ceiling of exposed tie-beams forming the main roof structure, and the hayloft above accessed by a ladder stair at the western end. The attic space has a boarded floor and an open timber roof of softwood construction with collars and vertical struts reinforced by iron brackets and straps.

Park Place estate was formerly a farm known as Perkes, Strowdes or Vyne's Place. It was first established as a country seat by Lord Archibald Hamilton, who bought the land in 1719 and subsequently built a mansion. From 1738 it belonged to Frederick, Prince of Wales, and from 1751 to General Henry Seymour Conway, who enlarged the estate and began laying out the present pleasure grounds. The estate was purchased in 1869 by paint manufacturer John Noble, who re-landscaped the grounds and employed architect Thomas Cundy III to rebuild the main house. Noble also redeveloped a number of the estate's agricultural buildings in a 'model farm' style. The dairy buildings at Park Place Farm were added to the existing complex at some point between 1875 and 1898, probably towards the end of that period judging by their stylistic similarity to the dated complex at nearby Templecombe Farm.

The barn is of high architectural quality, notable particularly for its vivid polychromy and lively brickwork detailing, and is of considerable rarity, dating from a period of severe agricultural recession. It is largely unaltered, retaining its original doors, windows and roof timbers as well as its impressive interior spaces.