Henry Simpson's Barn

MATERIALS: dressed, coursed limestone to front; coursed rubble to rear and sides. Gritstone quoins to all corners and ashlar dressings to all doorways. Stone slate roof mainly surviving to the front, but stripped to the rear.

PLAN: single-phase building of four bays with a side aisle on the north-east side. The main part of the building is a threshing barn served by opposed cart entrances, that to the north-east being recessed by being flanked by stores and loose boxes occupying the aisle. The main barn was formally subdivided internally with a shippon (cow house) at the south-east end served by two entrances in the gable wall; above this was a hay loft. A further hayloft was located at the north-west end served by a pitching hole in the upper part of the gable end.

EXTERIOR Front (south-west): the cart entrance is offset to the right of centre. It has a plain chamfer to the jambs and the voussoirs forming the segmental arch. Above is the inscribed plaque 'Mr H S 1737'. The elevation also includes simple ventilation holes, mostly within a single course running above the entrance.

South-east gable: two doorways set at the corners of the main range, both with chamfered jambs and monolithic lintels with incised ogee hoods. Between them there is a round headed ventilation slit which is also chamfered ashlar. Finely carved kneelers to both front and back, the moulding being cyma recta, cyma reversa.

Rear: the aisle appears as a two-bay outshut to the right, and one bay to the left. In between is the single-bay roofed porch to the recessed cart entrance to the barn. There are doorways at either end of the elevation and within both returns forming the entrance. All are similar to those on the south-east gable. At the far right of the elevation there is a ventilation slit also matching that in the southern gable.

North-west gable: cyma recta, cyma reversa kneelers. Square pitching window in the upper gable with a chamfered ashlar surround.

ROOF STRUCTURE: this is unconventional for the area and date, but is traditionally pegged and jointed, displaying carpenters' assembly marks. The main range has three roof trusses which have wind-braced king posts rising from high collars. These trusses support the ridge plate and three sets of trenched and staggered purlins. Raking struts rise from the tie beams to support the principal rafters just below the middle purlins. Aisle plates abut the feet of the tie beams and are supported, like the purlins for the aisles, by masonry walls. Two of the timbers used within the aisle roof are re-used cruck blades.