Barn At Orange Court Farm

The barn at Orange Court Farm is a threshing barn, likely built in the early 15th century and re-roofed in the 18th century. It features a timber frame on chalk footings, clad in weatherboarding, and has a half-hipped tiled roof. The barn includes a central cart entrance, and the east side has a small opening on pintle hinges.

Inside, the barn has five bays. All the upright posts with jowls have survived, along with all the tie beams and most of the curved braces connecting the principal uprights to the tie beams. The wall frame is distinctive as it has two lower rails instead of the usual single midrail. The north end and some other areas still have passing braces from the first rail to the wallplate. The roof was likely originally of the crownpost type, indicated by empty mortices and pegholes on the tie beams of each truss, suggesting down-curving braces were once present. Butt purlins were added in the 18th century. The original timbers of the wall frame feature chisel cut carpenter's assembly marks, which are also found on the rafters.

Historically, this barn is part of the Loseley estate and was associated with the old manor of Littleton, which predates the Norman Conquest. Orange Court Farm can be traced back to a map from 1735, but land owned by the Orenges family appears in local land transaction documents from 1464, and a farmer named John Orange is recorded as a tenant at Littleton in a 14th-century roll.