Barn With Gate Piers And Adjoining Building Approx 50 M East Of Golden Manor House

Barn with Gate Piers and Adjoining Building near Golden Manor House, Probus

This barn, probably part of a monastic complex, dates from the 15th to 16th centuries with significant rebuilding in the 19th century. It is constructed of shale rubble with granite dressings and covered with a 20th-century corrugated asbestos roof. The granite ashlar gate piers are probably 18th-century work. The complex is L-shaped with a quadrant newel stair turret set into the angle and stands 2 storeys high, comprising 8 bays (each bay defined by the space between floor beams).

The west front is heavily repaired and rebuilt but retains its essentially late medieval character. The door opening to the left is probably 19th-century, but the two buttresses with set-offs and granite weatherings are original. Two granite slit windows on the first floor are probably original, though reset. A later opening has been inserted above the right buttress. Between the buttresses sits a granite arched opening with a label, complete but probably inserted. A dated stone bearing "1879" likely indicates a repair date, possibly corresponding to the rebuilding of the south gable end, which incorporates many reused fragments including a 16th-century granite arch above the door (with a later keystone) and diabolo stopped cut-down jambs with a relieving arch above. A window to the left above the plinth is blocked and features a granite four-centred arch that has been reused upside-down to form a pointed arch over reused granite jambs, with a carved triangular stone above. The first floor contains a similar blocked opening to the left and a sundial to the right, both with relieving arches. A slit window in the gable may be reused from the west wall. The quoins are chamfered and stopped with a reused granite laughing lion gargoyle placed over the right upper stop. In the north-east corner of the slightly set-back wing, the quoins are similarly chamfered. However, the south-east corner displays random granite quoins and is probably original. A door in the south wall of the wing has a 19th-century slightly arched granite keyed lintel and a narrow centrally placed window on the first floor. The granite-coped east gable end has a half-round granite ashlar gate pier with an original granite slit window in the gable. The stair turret has a similar slit window. The back wall of the main range becomes thinner beyond the stair turret to the north and contains slightly arched openings, probably rebuilt in the 19th century. A reused narrow granite opening survives on the ground floor of the north gable wall, also probably rebuilt at the same time.

Adjoining the half-round gate pier to the east of the entrance is a building with three flat-headed granite chamfered window openings featuring internal four-centred brick arches. Two blocked door openings with similar brick arches are present on the east and west walls, and two pointed brick arches and recesses exist in the north-west corner. This part is known as the Chapel.

The barn's interior contains five chamfered and stopped ceiling beams in situ, with two further inverted beams at the north end suggesting a complete rebuild from that point onwards. Few, if any, original joists survive, though notches in the walls indicate their original positions. A softwood beam and softwood lintel in the south wall provide further evidence of rebuilding. At the entrance to the granite-treaded stair is a moulded granite doorframe with a semicircular head.