Town Head Barn

Town Head Barn

A barn of probable 17th-century origins, substantially altered and extended during the 18th and early 19th centuries, with a further addition made in 1948.

The building is constructed of local gritstone rubble, roughly squared and coursed, with tooled gritstone dressings of varying styles that indicate different periods of work. The roof is laid with stone slates in diminishing courses to a stone ridge. The 1948 addition is built of brick and concrete finished to imitate quarry-faced ashlar stonework.

The barn comprises seven bays in its main body. The first bay at the north-east end contains a shippon with a hayloft above. The second bay forms the threshing floor. The sixth and seventh bays formerly housed a further shippon with hayloft. A lean-to extension on the south side extends the first bay shippon, provides a porch to the threshing floor, and contains a two-bay shippon or stable accessed from the porch. The 1948 addition occupies the south-western end and connects to the main barn through two doorways in the gable end.

The gable ends are neatly quoined. The south-west gable is raised and coped with a moulded coping supported by moulded kneelers. The north-east gable end is plain verged and may have been rebuilt with the lean-to extension. Vertical straight joints between bays five-six and six-seven indicate early extensions. A horizontal discontinuity in the walling style in bays one-five, just above the north-west cart entrance, suggests an early heightening of the eaves: the stonework above this level is more random and less well coursed than that below.

On the north-west elevation, a wide cart entrance to the second bay is neatly built with quoins and voussoirs, the opening being straight chamfered with a segmental arch. Bay one has a small square window with a stone surround; bay seven has a similar sized but differently formed window. Four neatly built ventilation slits are evenly spaced along bays three-five. At eaves level there is a neatly built pitching opening to bay seven with a margin-dressed surround. Two further pitching openings, irregularly placed and slightly lower, are inserted at bays three and five.

On the south-east elevation, bays one-four of the barn are largely concealed within the lean-to extension. Bay one is opened up; bay two retains the chamfered jambs of the original cart entrance, though this has been heightened with the arch replaced by a rough, substantial round wood lintel with no walling above; bay three has inserted doorways at both ground and first floor levels; bay four has an inserted feeding hole between the barn and the added stable. The lower part of bay seven is also concealed by part of the 1948 addition. Bays five and six remain exposed: bay five has a ventilation slit similar to those on the north-west elevation, and bay six has a doorway with a Tudor-style monolithic lintel with sunk spandrels and quoined jambs, likely to be 17th-century but reset. Bay one of the extension has a similar reset doorway to the north-western shippon, retaining a rough, broad-planked door on blacksmith-made strap hinges. Bay two has the reset cart entrance arch with heightened, quoined (but not chamfered) jambs. Bays three and four have a small square window and two ventilation slits; the south-west facing return has windows at ground and first floor. Internally to the porch are a pair of feeding holes into bay one and a doorway and niche into bay three.

The north-east gable shows a straight joint between the original barn and the extension, with indications of the raising of eaves and rooflines. Three small ground floor windows are visible. A large niche, visible internally, may represent a further blocked ground floor window.

The south-west gable has an attic window showing evidence of being a former doorway. At ground floor level (internal to the 1948 addition) are two doorways and a feeding hole; the northern doorway has jambs formed from impost blocks set on tall plinth blocks, probably 18th-century.

The 1948 addition is a large single-storey shed with a large entrance in its gable end, above which is set a date stone inscribed MDN/Aug28 1948. This shed extends as a lean-to against the southern side of the western-most bay of the barn.

Internally, the main barn roof retains four 18th-century collared trusses with trenched purlins, carpenter-marked one to four from the south-west end, constructed of oak. The two north-eastern trusses are of Baltic pine, being queen-post trusses supporting tusked purlins; these are later but possibly also 18th-century. The barn floor is concreted except for the north-easternmost bay, which retains its original stone flagging complete with drainage gully; this floor treatment continues into the extension. Bays two and three of the extension also retain a stone-flagged floor and gully. A hayloft floor with rough remains of cattle stalling below survives at the north-east end of the barn, thought likely to be 19th-century. Numerous socket holes within the barn walls imply further hay lofts, though these may be former scaffolding holes.