Coppice Howe bank barn

Bank barn, C18.

MATERIALS: rubble slatestone with slate roofs.

PLAN: a two-storey bank barn oriented east to west, with ground floor access from the farmyard and ramped first-floor access.

EXTERIOR: set at right-angles to the farmhouse is a substantial, quoined, stone bank barn beneath a pitched roof of graduated slate, with an uneven ridge line. It is built along the contours into the slope of the hillside. The south elevation facing into the farmyard has access to the ground floor through a pair of segmental-headed entrances with boarded doors, and three similar but narrower entrances, now (2022) blocked with inserted upper windows to the east end. There are a further five entrances all with boarded doors and replaced concrete lintels. To the upper floor, there are three openings, the most westerly beneath a waney timber lintel, and the central one occupying the place of a former winnowing door. The central part of this elevation appears to have been partially rebuilt. The east gable is blind and has an attached, open, lean-to addition with a small chimney; a timber lintel to the apex suggests the presence of a blocked opening. The west gable is blind, with an attached single-storey lean-to. The rear elevation has a pair of openings at the east end, one blocked, and one with a narrow-boarded door with strap hinges. There is a central double threshing door with a timber lintel, flanked by a pair of ventilation slits to either side (two blocked), and an opening to the right end beneath a waney timber lintel.

INTERIOR: the first-floor threshing barn has a timber threshing floor, flanked by storage areas to either side; a single hatch to the floor below is visible, and there is a later chute to the east gable. The original adzed-dressed roof structure comprises six pegged triangular trusses with collars and some struts, hafted into a ridge piece, and there are double purlins. The ground floor is divided into several low compartments, retaining waney and adze-dressed timber ceiling beams. There is a significant survival of early, timber cow byre and stable fittings. Towards the west end, there is cattle housing in the form of rows of double stalls comprising wooden frames enclosing wide boarded panels. The vertical posts at the end of each stall are carried up to meet the ceiling beams and many are at an angle in the form of crotched stall-posts. Towards the east end, there is a stable containing several individual timber boarded stalls with cobbled floors and timber food racks.