Parkpale Farm Barn

BRILL

397/0/10002 LONG CRENDON ROAD 07-AUG-06 Parkpale Farm Barn

II Vernacular three-bay barn dated 1733.

MATERIALS: timber-framing and brick walls, red tile roof.

EXTERIOR: The barn comprises a three-bay, part timber-framed structure with half-hipped, red tile, roof. All four walls are mainly of local, hand-made, 2½ inch red brick, other than to the front where the upper two-thirds of the wall is timber-framed and weatherboarded. Blocked single ventilation slits pierce the gable walls and to either side of original rear door opening. The upper part of the both right and left gables have been rebuilt in brick c.1800, and at some stage a ground-floor door was opened (and subsequently blocked) in the centre of the left gable. There are full-height double doors in the central bay to front and an opening for the same in the original rear wall. The rear of the barn has been widened by half a bay along its full length in several phases over the C18 and C19; the roof descends over this from the gable in an unbroken slope. Low double door in centre of rear wall and single window to left.

INTERIOR: Timber-frame is exposed throughout, and seemingly early C18. The central bay is framed with tiebeams (with run-out stops to rear) set on jowelled posts with straight braces to the front and set directly on the wall plate (without braces) to the rear. Queen post variant roof trusses. Roof with twin purlins, straight windbraces and common rafters. Walls have studs and diagonal straight braces to each bay. The original rear brick wall remains exposed within the later outshut infill to both sides of the threshing porch.

HISTORY: When a farm was established here is not known; the barn is the oldest structure on site. '1733' is neatly carved on one of the its main posts together with the intials I (or J) W. This, stylistically, is plausible as the date of construction of the main structure. Parkpale farmhouse is apparently C19 and later. The other buildings which make up the sprawling farm complex are mostly utilitarian steel and concrete structures of the later C20.

The presumably medieval park pale (boundary) alluded to in Parkpale's name is still marked by a field boundary which snakes by close to the farm.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: This three-bay barn has '1733' carved on a main post, a notable example of an agricultural building being so dated. It is a strongly vernacular and characterful building combining a mostly intact early-C18 timber framing with brick walls and a red tile roof, both products of the local long-lived ceramic industries.