Woods Barn Outfarm

Woods Barn Outfarm is an agricultural complex dating from around 1800, with additions from the mid-19th century, located in Ipplepen. It is built from local limestone rubble with some cob to the wall tops and granite posts. The timber roof structures, originally thatched, are now covered in corrugated iron sheeting.

The complex is set into rising ground and comprises a roughly square walled courtyard with a large threshing barn external to the north range. Lean-to open-fronted animal shelters are ranged around the foldyard on the north, west and south sides. The main entrance is at the south-east angle, with a further access in the north-west angle. An external cart shed stands to the west, and a blocked building of uncertain function lies to the east of the barn. An engine platform with stone revetments approximately 1 metre high sits immediately to the north of the barn. The complex is characterised by massive rubble walling at least 2 metres high.

The threshing barn is built into sloping ground and comprises two storeys and seven bays. Opposing double doors are set just off centre towards the west in the long walls. On the north elevation, a large rubble buttress is positioned either side of the door. The west elevation has a taking-in door in the upper gable wall. The barn roof is hipped towards the east and gabled at the west to accommodate the taking-in door. Internally, the rubble and cob walls are partly lime rendered with brick quoins to the south door. No surviving interior features remain, although the position of the former loft can be identified from wall scars. A small square opening high up in the north wall is believed to be an access for a drive shaft to an external threshing engine formerly located on the exterior platform. The roof comprises six A-frame timber trusses, halved and pegged at the ridge with face-pegged collars, suggesting a date around 1800 or earlier. The hip structure survives to the east.

The single-storey cart shed to the west has rubble and cob walls, open to the north. Its roof structure, now collapsed, was of A-frame construction with notched and nailed collars, indicative of a 19th-century date.

The courtyard is occupied by a stone-floored open foldyard with animal shelters on the north, west and south sides. The shelter to the north, against the barn, comprises six bays with a cat-slide roof supported upon monolithic granite posts, of which three remain in situ. The shelters to the south and west have pitched A-frame roofs supported upon five massive rubble columns; the roof of the west range has collapsed. Remains of timber mangers and feeding troughs are visible. In the north-west angle is a flight of five steep stone stairs leading to a wide doorway giving access to the cart shed. At the east of the barn is another structure, currently inaccessible, which may have been a storage tank or root store.

The complex is characterised by large blank expanses of massive rubble walling at least 2 metres high terminating in massive columnar gate piers at the double-width entrance in the south-east angle. There is a single doorway with a short flight of steps to the cart shed in the north-west angle.

Woods Barn Outfarm appears on the 1840 Tithe Apportionment for Ipplepen, where it is recorded as held by tenants of New House Barton Farm, part of the Ambrook estate, an extensive manor originating in the 13th century. It was a relatively large mixed farm covering 100 hectares of rolling land lying largely between the farmstead and the village of Ipplepen to the east. The outfarm is located centrally, so that no part of the farm was more than a kilometre distant from either the farmstead or the outfarm. Stylistic evidence, in particular the roof structure of the main barn, suggests that Woods Barn dates from around 1800, possibly earlier, and the complex clearly developed through the early 19th century. The complete plan form is indicative of an outfarm typical of the scientific approach to mixed farming spreading throughout England during this period.