BARN AT SS 523 152

This is a barn known as "The Barracks" located in Merton, dated 1734. The walls are made of roughly squared rubble, lined internally with brick, and it has a slate roof that is gabled at the right end and hipped at the left-hand end. The barn has a rectangular plan with an off-centre threshing floor, although there is evidence that it was originally L-shaped.

The exterior is single-storey with an asymmetrical front. There is a wide cart entrance to the right of centre, flanked by projecting rubble buttresses. To the left of the entrance, there is a slit opening with a dressed stone surround and a low doorway with a brick arch. About two-thirds of the way along the left side of the front, there is a straight joint where the stonework changes, indicating that a wing was once present but has been demolished. A section of the outer wall of this former wing, capped with slate, still projects from the left end of the barn.

On the right-hand gable wall, there are four slit openings arranged in two rows, with a sandstone plaque inscribed with the year 1734 at the centre. The rear elevation features a blocked cart entrance to the left of centre, with one slit opening to its left and two to its right. Inside, the barn has 18th-century roof trusses with trenched purlins, lapped and pegged collars, and tie beams.