Lowfield Hall

Lowfield Hall

An early seventeenth-century timber-framed barn, dated by dendrochronology to 1604-29, extended in the late eighteenth century, and converted to a house in the 1970s.

The barn and stable extension are both of oak timber-framed construction, with nineteenth or twentieth-century brick in-fill to all elevations. The chimney stacks are of brick construction, and the roof is covered with clay tiles. Windows are twentieth-century timber casements with multi-pane leaded lights.

The original barn is a three-bay box frame running north to south. It is half-hipped to the southern end and gable-ended at the northern end, becoming hipped over the stable. The entirety of the three bays is taken up by a full-height single room, with an internal chimney stack to the southern end. The stable extension to the east has five bays and houses a kitchen, hall, bathroom and bedrooms. The overall footprint is L-shaped.

The principal elevation of the barn faces west and is formed of three bays of exposed timber-frame in-filled with multi-coloured bricks. The central bay has a large window in the former cart entrance, made up of seven over seven casements. The bays to either side have smaller windows. Evidence in the frame shows where the beam above the original doorway has been cut back to provide a taller entrance. At the northern end, the stable extension forms a fourth bay which has similar fenestration, a nine-panelled timber door, and a small inset brick chimney stack. On the southern elevation of the barn the original timber corner-posts are exposed, but the rest of the gable is in-filled with twentieth-century brick in a stretcher bond. Twentieth-century repair timbers have been inserted at the top of the wall to form an apex, above which projects a twentieth-century chimney stack.

The eastern elevation of the barn is similar to the western but the lower section of brick in-fill is twentieth-century and laid in a stretcher bond. To the north, this elevation meets the southern elevation of the stable extension, which is single-storey and faced in twentieth-century brick also laid in a stretcher bond. It has a vertically planked timber door and four multi-paned timber casement windows. Evidence in the frame shows the position of the door hinges of the original full-height door.

The northern elevation is formed by the rear of the stable extension. It has an exposed timber frame with eighteenth-century brick in-fill above a later brick plinth. At the eastern end of this elevation the brick is covered with twenty-first century horizontal timber cladding. A twenty-first century single-storey flat-roofed extension projects centrally from this elevation.

Inside the barn the majority of the timber-frame is exposed, with plaster in-fill. The wall frames have down-braces continuing from the jowl-posts to the girding beams beneath. There are two arch braced tie-beams which support unusual concave-curved raking queen-posts. The roof is substantially as first built. It is half-hipped at both ends with high-set collars which are connected to clasped side-purlins and straight wind braces, and has common rafters, some of which show evidence of re-use, and no ridge piece.

At the southern end there is a twentieth-century fireplace and internal chimney breast with brass fire-hood. At the north-eastern corner there is a timber boarded door to the stable extension.

Within the single-storey stable extension, the original northern external wall of the barn's timber-frame is visible. The rest of the extension is finished in twentieth-century plaster with no other historic fabric visible.