Barn And Malthouse 15 Yards North Of Longford House

Barn and Malthouse 15 Yards North of Longford House

An 18th-century threshing barn, converted for use as a malthouse in the 19th century, with attached wagon shed and barn.

The barn is constructed of rubble limestone under a roof that is partially stone slate and partially 20th-century concrete tiles. The interior structure is largely of timber, consisting of oak, elm and pine.

The buildings are orientated roughly east-west and stand to the north of Longford House, facing the courtyard to the rear of the house. The barn has a large porch at its centre with the former threshing door opening blocked and a small window above a timber lintel. To the left is a lean-to extension with blocked openings and a dog-hole, and to the right an infill with a door between the porch and the later kiln house extension, which has a wide opening on its east face. The high roof of the main barn rises above with coped gables at each end; the western gable is decorated with a finial. At the east end of the barn is an adjoining wing with two door openings and a small quatrefoil owl opening. To the west is a wagon shed which is open at the end and has a partially hipped roof.

The barn is built into the hillside. Its long rear elevation has a number of ventilation holes which have been blocked. The original winnowing opening is also blocked, with a small window left below. There are two other window openings and a door which has stairs leading up to it, giving access to the upper levels of the barn.

Internally, the original threshing barn consists of five bays. In the 19th century, when the building was converted for use as a malthouse, floor levels were inserted. The lower ground floor is a single open space with a number of columns supporting the floor above, including two cast iron columns. The original walls of the threshing barn have been thickened in places to support the floor structure above. An opening at the west end provided access for the hoist above. The former porch contains a small room at ground floor level. The kiln house to the east, where the furnace would have been located, is roofless but retains chutes in the wall above for transferring barley from the upper areas.

The middle floor of the barn retains a number of bins for the storage of malt and barley. Some are marked out by surviving beams on the floor; in other areas the walls of the storage bins survive with evidence of lath and plaster internal faces. At the west end is the hoist, which has a protective timber housing. At the east end, a timber stair gives access to the upper floor, a single large space used as a growing floor. The floor has a lime ash covering, extended to walls around the edges to prevent the loss of grain in the eaves of the roof. At the west end, the original timber and iron wheel of the hoist survives. The original roof trusses survive with some later purlins probably of the 19th century; the majority of the common rafters were replaced in the 1970s.

In the adjoining east wing, there is a partially surviving cobbled and flagged floor in one storage room with a loft above and an historic roof structure, with an owl box at one end.