Rudgwick Barn and attached cow byres

Rudgwick Barn and attached cow byres is a threshing barn with cow byres located at Hope Farm. The barn dates from the mid-16th century, with the southern end adapted in the early 18th century to form cow byres, and additional attached cow byres added to the south west dating from the 18th century.

The barn is timber-framed and clad in weatherboarding on a stone rubble plinth, which has been partly replaced in brick and concrete. The south wall is constructed of regular coursed rubblestone blocks with red dressing, patched with some English bond brickwork. The building has a hipped roof with gablets at each end, carried down to a low eaves above the single aisle on the west side. The roof is clad in 20th-century machine-made clay tiles, though the earlier roof was tiled or more probably thatched. The cow byres are also timber-framed, clad in weatherboarding with hipped tiled roofs.

The barn comprises five bays with a slightly shorter bay at the south end, aisled to the west. The cow byres are attached to the south end of the barn in a zigzag formation. The west side of the barn features a central cart entrance with 20th-century ledged and braced double doors. The east side originally had a full-height cart entrance but this has been filled in and replaced by a small 20th-century plank door, with a further door at the extreme south. The north end has a later fixed casement inserted without damaging the wall frame. The south end has a lean-to added probably in the early 18th century, with an external wall rebuilt in regularly coursed and dressed small rubblestone blocks with red brick dressings above a rubblestone plinth. A section of this wall was later rebuilt in English bond brickwork.

Internally, the barn has upright posts and aisle posts which are jowled. The wall frame to the east side features a mid-rail with three studs between the wall-posts and curved braces above the midrail. The north end wall retains its original framing intact, except for one replacement stud, with a massive midrail and large curved braces to the corner and end aisle post. A centre wall post has studs morticed to the midrail on each side. The studwork beneath the wall-plate to the external west wall is mainly original north of the cart entrance but has been replaced in the south. The western aisle is supported on five aisle posts on padstones, all reused from an earlier structure, with slightly curved braces to the arcade plate. The internal south wall was modified in the early 18th century when adapted as a cow byre, though much of the original timber was reused, including curved braces. The roof structure has four full trusses, as the southern end was truncated when converted into a cow byre. Each truss has curved braces from the wall-posts to the tie beams, mostly original, and all trusses except the northern one have angled queen struts to the clasped purlins. All the rafters are original. The southern cattle byre has a weatherboarded north wall with some wide planks and wooden stall partitions.

The attached cow byres to the south west have wall frames with thin scantling and partitions with diagonal braces. Roof structures include angled queen-struts and some wooden hay racks survive.

This is a substantially intact mid-16th-century aisled timber-framed threshing barn that reuses earlier aisle posts. The southern bay was adapted to form a cow byre in the early 18th century. The attached cow byres at the south end date from the 18th century. The structure forms part of a good farm group.