Barnes Place

Barnes Place is a large farmhouse of exceptional architectural and historical significance. Built in the early 14th century, it underwent a series of improvements through the 15th, 16th, and 17th centuries, with some 19th and 20th century modernisation. The building displays exposed timber framing throughout, with the ground floor largely underbuilt in 19th century Flemish bond red brick incorporating some burnt headers. The rear of the main block is clad with 19th century scallop-shaped tiles. The building features brick and sandstone chimney stacks with brick chimneyshafts and a peg-tile roof.

The house is arranged in an L-plan, with the main block set back from the lane facing north-northwest. The main block contains a two-room plan with a two-storey service outshot at the left (east) end. The left room is a parlour with a projecting gable-end stack. To the right stands a large entrance hall with an axial stack towards the right end, with the main stairs rising against the back wall alongside the stack. At the right (west) end is a three-room plan parlour crosswing, which projects to the rear and very slightly forward. The main parlour occupies the front with the principal bedchamber above, featuring a projecting outer lateral stack. Service rooms to the rear are now used as offices. A single-storey kitchen block projects backwards in the angle between the two wings, containing an axial stack between the main kitchen and a small unheated rear room.

The house has a long and complex structural history with a layout that has evolved through successive building phases. The main block was built in the early 14th century as an open hall house, open to the roof and heated by an open hearth fire. The entrance hall was the hall itself. Evidence survives for a closed truss at the right (west) end, and a two-storey solar end which was later replaced by the present parlour crosswing. At the eastern end of the hall, a spere truss indicates that the room beyond was the service end, also originally open to the roof. This end underwent 19th century modernisation, and the date when the spere truss was closed and the end floored over cannot be determined. The parlour crosswing was added in the late 15th or early 16th century. A two-storey wing with the first floor originally open to the roof dates from this period, and the first floor chamber was originally jettied at the front. At the same time, the closed truss was altered and a moulded dais beam inserted. The main block was originally wider than at present and was narrowed, probably in the early to mid 16th century, when a timber-framed stack was inserted and the hall floored over. The flooring may have occurred in two phases during the 16th century. The layout of the beams suggests there may initially have been a gallery across the rear, though the flooring appears largely contemporary. From the beginning, a staircase occupied essentially its present position. The parlour crosswing was refurbished in the late 16th or early 17th century. The kitchen block dates to the 18th or 19th century, with no evidence of an earlier kitchen.

The main house rises two storeys with attics in the roofspace.

The exterior is an attractive, asymmetrical composition presenting a 2:3:1-window front. The two-window section to the left serves the outshot. Most windows are 20th century casements, with a couple retaining glazing bars but most with rectangular panes of leaded glass. The three-bay main block has a central doorway with a 20th century part-glazed door and side lights. To the left is a late 19th century casement with margin panes, and to the right a late 19th or early 20th century window with a pointed arch head. The main block framing consists of large timber work with secondary straight tension braces. Mortises in the central bay suggest there was once a projecting bay window. The main block roof hips down slightly to the lower parlour crosswing roof to the right and is gable-ended to the left. The outshot is set back with a lower roof, gable-ended with a lean-to at the end. The crosswing roof is gabled to the front and hipped to the rear. The front end is close-studded above a moulded bressummer at first floor level. The western front presents a 1:2-window composition interrupted by the large stack. The stack's base comprises sandstone blocks laid in rough courses with brick above, topped by tall divided diagonal chimneyshafts. All first floor windows on this side are 20th century casements with arch-headed lights, and the contemporary ground floor front window has a pointed arch head. All windows on this elevation have leaded glass panes, mostly in diamond patterns. The brick kitchen wing projects further back than the crosswing and features a 20th century projecting porch on its inner side, with a gable rising above eaves level. The back of the main block includes a late 19th or early 20th century pointed arch-head window with Y-tracery serving the hall, and a 19th century French window with margin panes to the parlour. Three gabled dormers punctuate the main block roof, with a 20th century half-dormer added to the outshot.

The interior is exceptional. The main block preserves extensive remains of the 14th century house. The hall roof spans two bays, carried on the remains of a large arch-braced base cruck truss. The chamfered arch brace is evidently a cruck post reused when the building was narrowed. An octagonal crown post and four-way curving braces survive. Smoke-blackening from the original open hearth fire remains visible on the crown post even below the attic ceiling. Both ends of the hall arcade posts are exposed at first floor level. The west end front post retains a curving windbrace from post to arcade plate, with others showing evidence for two sets of arch-braces in each spere. On the hall side, the posts are chamfered with remains of moulded capitals. Both end trusses feature plain crown posts with curving down braces. At least one arcade plate continues east of the hall but is plastered over. A large horizontal plate is exposed at first floor level in the east wall, though it sits too low to have supported the arcade plates.

The posts of the western closed truss now sit on a secondary dais beam moulded with beads and a coved hollow chamfer. The hall fireplace is brick with a plain timber surround. The first floor structure appears to have undergone some 19th century alteration. The stack appears to be a 17th century rebuild of a 16th century timber-framed stack, though the rear portion dates to the 16th century. All beams and joists are chamfered with step stops. The ground to first floor stairs are 20th century, but the plain stairs ascending to the attic rooms are much earlier and lead to 17th and 18th century doorways. Little carpentry is exposed in the main block parlour, the chamber above, or the hall chamber, as all retain their mid-19th century refurbishment. The hall chamber features a good 19th century iron grate and chimneypiece.

The west end of the hall includes paired blocked doorframes to the parlour crosswing. The parlour contains an unchamfered crossbeam and joists and a large stone ashlar fireplace with a Tudor arch head and moulded surround. A similar fireplace occupies the great chamber. This chamber has a two-bay roof above. The tie beam and wall posts are hollow-chamfered and were formerly arch-braced. Evidence suggests it also originally had a crown post, though the roof was replaced in the late 16th or early 17th century with clasped side purlin construction and queen struts.

Barnes Place is an important and well-preserved medieval house containing good but modest work from most subsequent building phases. It forms part of a good group of listed buildings at the eastern end of the hamlet at Golden Green.