Shelter Shed Parsonage Farm

OVER STOWEY

1873/0/10013 SHELTER SHED, PARSONAGE FARM 01-NOV-07

GV II Cattle-shelter shed, circa early C19. MATERIALS: Random rubble stone to rear and end walls, stone columns to front (east and north) elevations, and a hipped roof of double Roman tiles. PLAN: The shelter shed is a single storey structure that is L-shaped on plan. It consists of four bays to each range, probably fronting a former yard. EXTERIOR: The north and east elevations to the yard are open-fronted. Equally spaced, circular stone columns form a colonnade which supports the hipped, tiled roof on these sides. The rear (west and south) elevations and end walls are of rubble stone. There is a doorway in the rear wall of the west range. INTERIOR: Pegged collar and tie-beam trusses, each with a notched apex for the ridge piece, and a single row of trenched purlins to each side. HISTORY: The shelter shed forms a group with the former farmhouse at Parsonage Farm which dates largely from the C16 and C17, with C19 alterations. A barn that was attached to the east gable wall of the shelter shed collapsed in the later C20. The farm occupies the site of a medieval and post-medieval rectory which passed to the Mayor and commonalty of Bristol in about 1541. The city corporation sold the estate to a tenant in 1840. SOURCES: Somerset Vernacular Building Research Group, Parsonage Farm (2005) H. Riley, Historic Landscape of the Quantocks (2006) C.R. Elrington, The Victoria County Histories of England - Somerset (1992), pp 163

REASON FOR DESIGNATION DECISION: The cattle-shelter shed at Parsonage Farm is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * It is a largely intact example of an early C19 free-standing shelter shed. * As a stone-built agricultural building of strong vernacular character which retains its principal timbers * It forms a cogent grouping with the farmhouse at Parsonage Farm.