Bank Barn With Waterwheel And Cartshed And Granary About 16 Metres West Of Kernick Farmhouse

A mid-19th century bank barn with a waterwheel, adjoining cartshed, and granary, situated approximately 16 metres west of Kernick Farmhouse. The building is constructed of local stone rubble with granite lintels, a rendered rear wall to the barn, and slate-hung front to the granary. It has slate roofs, with a hipped roof over the bank barn section, a lower gable-ended roof over the cartshed and granary, and a lean-to roof covering the waterwheel.

The building’s plan is a continuous long rectangular range. The centre comprises a bank barn, consisting of a shippon on the ground floor with a threshing barn above, powered by a waterwheel at the west end. To the east is a 4-bay open-fronted cartshed with a granary above accessible by external slate steps to a door in the gable end.

The front of the bank barn has three doorway openings on the ground floor, each with large granite lintels. The central opening is wider and slightly to the left, with a loading door above, sheltered by a slated canopy supported on timber cantilevers and double doors. The cartshed’s open front features granite monolith posts supporting a continuous timber bressumer, above which is the slate-hung front of the granary, which has two small rectangular ventilation holes. The left-hand gable end of the cartshed and granary has external slate steps leading to the first-floor granary doorway and plank door. There are no openings in the back wall of the cartshed and granary.

The rear of the bank barn has ventilation slits in the ground-floor shippon, and a wide doorway with double doors in the upper barn, opposite the front loading doorway and also with a slated canopy; this doorway is accessed by a slate bridge over a ditch. A small square hatch is located on the first floor of the barn to the left. The west end of the barn houses an overshot waterwheel in a pit, covered by a lean-to roof supported by a stone rubble side wall. The cast-iron waterwheel remains, with wooden buckets, but other machinery has been removed, and the wooden launder has collapsed.

The interior features 6-bay barn and 5-bay granary roofs constructed with bolted softwood trusses, tie-beams, and collars. Kernick Farmhouse, adjacent to the barn, has a 1871 datestone and incorporates a reused 3-light granite mullion window with a hood mould, evidence of an earlier house that was allegedly destroyed by fire.