Pierrepont Reeds Cottage Barn

This is a late 17th or early 18th century barn and cartshed, with an attached outbuilding dating to the late 18th or early 19th century, located near Tilford. The barn is timber-framed, built on a brick or ironstone plinth, and clad in weatherboarding, with some visible ironstone and brick walling. It has a tiled roof.

The barn’s plan consists of four bays aligned north-west to south-east, extended by one bay to the south-east, and a two-bay outbuilding attached to the north-west, creating an L-shaped layout. The south-west side of the barn is built of ironstone rubble with brick quoins and features a penticed cart entrance in the second-to-last bay, and a stable door to the north. The north-east side has a lower cart entrance with double doors retaining old pintle hinges, and two later window openings that have since been blocked. The north-west end has a half-hipped gable and includes an early 20th-century two-light arched casement inserted for a picturesque view from Pierrepont Reeds Cottage, with two narrow casements below. The attached outbuilding is mainly timber-framed on an ironstone plinth, clad in weatherboarding, except for the south-west side which is brick. Its north-west side has two doors, including a plank door with pintle hinges on the west, potentially originating from Pierrepont Reeds Cottage.

Inside the barn, the wall frame has jowled upright posts and angled queen struts supporting the roof with purlins and rafters, and lacking a ridgepiece. The southern end has rafters replaced with poles. The three northern bays were converted into stabling, featuring 19th-century wooden stall partitions, two quarter-circle wooden feeding troughs, and a tethering ring. There are also two wooden partitions within. The outbuilding has angled queenstruts and rafters made of sawn timbers and is now divided by a 20th-century partition.

The building is shown on the 1876 Ordnance Survey map south of two cottages (now Pierrepont Farm Cottage) within an area called The Reeds. An additional L-shaped range was attached to the barn’s south-eastern end on maps from 1876 and 1916, together enclosing a rectangular farmyard. This southern range was later demolished, and the remaining farm buildings were used as a workshop and woodstore, with a further bay added in matching style to the south-east of the barn. The buildings were historically part of the Pierrepont estate. This barn and outbuilding are significant, retaining much of their original fabric and displaying a good example of a late 17th or early 18th century agricultural building. It is closely associated with Pierrepont Farm Cottage.