Tithe Barn Adjoining Tythe Barn House

SP4735 ADDERBURY WATER LANE (South side) Adderbury East 7/130 Tithe Barn adjoining Tythe 08/12/55 Barn House (not included) (Formerly listed as Tithe Barn, High Street)

GV II Tithe barn. Completed c.1422 for New College, Oxford; probably reduced and partly rebuilt C17; altered c.1877 for Lord Haldon. Marlstone ashlar with some limestone-ashlar dressings; Stonesfield-slate and concrete plain-tile roof. 5-bay plan, probably originally longer. Road front has 6 stepped buttresses, the westernmost probably Cl7, and has a central doorway with a pointed chamfered arch and a hood mould. The unaltered left (east) gable wall has 3 buttresses, the angle buttresses set diagonally, and has 3 long slit openings. At the rear only the 2 easternmost buttresses (including the angle buttress), are medieval; the raking westernmost buttress is probably C17, and there are three C19 buttresses with limestone dressings. The walling of the middle bay replaces an earlier wide porch or doorway, the jambs of which are visible internally. The west gable wall, partly obscured by lower farmbuildings (now Tythe Barn House), is probably C17 but contains a wide C19 doorway with a shallow depressed arch in limestone ashlar. Both sides have 2 square C19 windows set below the eaves, and have 2 hipped roof dormers. Interior: slits have wide splays and pointed rere-arches; medieval doorway has a chamfered segmental rere-arch. 5-bay roof has two C17 trusses, each with tiebeam plus 2 collars supporting 3 rows of butt purlins, but the 2 westernmost trusses are largely original with saddles at the apex, 2 collars, (the lower renewed), and mortices for arched braces; the westernmost appears to be the only truss to have remained in situ, and retains its curved feet set into rebates in the wall. The construction of the barn bears a strong resemblance to the other early-C15 New College barns at Upper Heyford and Swalcliffe, and John Jylkes, carpenter, is known to have worked at all three places. The barn was associated with the rectorial manor house, now The Grange (q.v.), which was rebuilt in 1684. (Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: p416; VCH: Oxfordshire: Vol IX, pll; R.B. Wood-Jones, Traditional Domestic Architecture in the Banbury Region, 1963, pp20-22)

Listing NGR: SP4711935460