Tithe Barn

Tithe Barn

A former tithe barn of 17th-century date, built for the vicar of Skipton, with alterations made in the late 18th century.

The barn is constructed of mixed rubble masonry, predominantly local silt and mudstone with some Flasby red sandstone, laid to courses. The roof is covered with stone slate laid to diminishing courses and finished with a stone ridge. Some cast iron rainwater goods survive.

The building is a single-cell, five-bay barn. Its west elevation features a central cart entrance formed with a timber lintel protected by a projecting course of slates. Some of the jamb-stones are herring-bone tooled. The lintel comprises two re-used oak beams that retain mortise and peg-holes as well as pintle-hinge sockets. To the south of the entrance is a large area of rebuilt walling with an open ventilation slot. A change in the stonework at the level of the cart entrance suggests a former eaves line. At the north end is an infilled inserted doorway with an inserted window beyond. Regularly spaced, neatly formed projecting corbels mark the positions of the roof trusses internally.

The east elevation has a winnowing door at its centre, formed with a monolithic lintel and south jamb protected by a two-centred relieving arch with thin slab voussoirs. The doorway is now infilled with stonework including some large blocks with carved rebates, possibly former flagstones from the shippon. Three ventilation slots flank the doorway on either side, those to the north being blocked. Higher up are four possible putlog holes, with stonework hints of a former eaves line just above. Below the current eaves line are four projecting corbels, more roughly formed than those on the west side.

The north gable retains hints of a lowered roofline visible as two large stones stepping up from a quoin stone on the east side. A high-level square pitching opening is formed with a monolithic surround and infilled with a cast iron multi-paned window. Above this is an owl hole flanked by projecting stones for a landing board.

The south gable has a square pitching opening with a modern board door offset to the west of the ridgeline. To the east side is a putlog hole.

The interior roof structure is entirely of adzed and riven hardwood, probably oak, including the slating battens, common rafters, purlins, and trusses. It is traditionally pegged and jointed with no apparent use of ironwork. Many purlins have redundant mortises indicating they are reused from an earlier timber-framed building. Most tie beams also have redundant mortises, these appearing to be for braces to wall posts, so they have retained their original functions in reuse. The tie beam to the southern-most truss has a single redundant mortise suggesting it was formerly an upright post.

The four roof trusses are seated kingpost trusses with kingposts trenched to support the ridge purlins. The principal rafters appear tenoned into the heads of the kingposts and are supported by angled struts to the tie beam, with both queen struts and struts to the base of the kingposts. The kingposts have mortises for wind bracing, though corresponding mortises do not appear in the ridge purlins. The trusses are seated on projecting stone corbels. They support a single pair of staggered purlins, mainly trenched into the principal rafters, which directly support seven pairs of common rafters per bay. The upper surfaces of the two northern-most tie beams have shallow housings for floor joists.

The lower portion of the walls in the northern half of the building retains traces of limewash. The southern gable end is faced with modern blockwork.