Barn At Malcoff Farm

A barn at Malcoff Farm, dating to the late 17th or early 18th century, with extensions and alterations in the late 19th and 20th centuries. The barn is built of coursed gritstone with quoins and well-finished dressings, and has a stone-slated roof laid to diminishing courses. It is arranged as an "L" shape, comprising two builds with the earlier part extending northwest from an added wing running northeast to southwest. The original section has five bays, is single-storied with overlofts, and the two bays at the southeast end were refronted in the late 19th century. A central advanced porch, under an extended roof slope, features full-height double doors. To the left of the porch is a wide doorway with a chamfered surround and a massive, roughly-shaped stone lintel. To the right, the refronted wall now has a doorway at each end, one leading to a cowhouse and the other to a small dairy, which was formerly part of the cowhouse. Between these doorways are two windows with pivot frames. Above the windows are three small openings to the overloft. The rear elevation has unequal offshoots either side of an inset doorway with a chamfered surround. Inserted window and doorway openings are also present. A late 19th-century range is attached and built on a slope, with a long continuous offshut to the southeast side. The southwest elevation includes a cartshed with double doors set beneath an ashlar segmental arch, as well as an entry to the cowhouse. Overloft breathers and windows, one inserted, are visible. The southeast gable has a taking-in doorway to the apex, and a cowhouse entry and window to the ground floor. The northwest gable has a blocked doorway to the left, an inserted doorway to the right, and a window to the ground floor, along with a taking-in doorway in the gable apex. Internally, the earlier part of the barn features a single queen strut truss to the porch bay, supporting double purlins. Elsewhere, there are masonry partition walls, and in the later range, C19 shouldered king post trusses. This substantial, multi-purpose outbuilding was built in two phases and, together with the adjacent Malcoff Farmhouse, forms an important element of a significant vernacular farmstead group, contributing to the farmhouse's setting. It reflects the importance of cattle husbandry in the 18th and 19th centuries.