Abbey Barn

ST51NW 1/69

YEOVIL CP PRESTON ROAD (North side)

Abbey Barn (formerly listed as Tithe Barn)

19.3.51

- I

Barn (now building contractors showroom and store) apparently c1420, contemporary with, (and set close at right angles to) Abbey Farm Farmhouse. Local stone, squared and tooled, with stone tiled roof set between coped gables. 10-bays, marked by double offset buttresses and projecting porches to North and South flanks. Ends have centre and diagonal buttresses. Porches have diagonal buttresses, with high double doors and wicket entrances set in two centre arches double chamfered with no capitals or abaci; long unglazed slit windows to each bay. Plinth to all walls, finials to gables. Later Tudor door added in South-west corner. Interior now much obscured by independant structure erected for present use, but roof is clearly visible. The trusses are raised crucks, morticed and tenoned at apex, (with additional trusses at gable ends); a form of jointed cruck, with 4-rows of trenched purlins, the lowest almost on the head of the wall (the walls are headed with well cut stone and the rafters end clear of the wall). Curved windbraces to two lower panels, frame oak and elm, rafters modern (roof slightly damaged by bomb in 1940). At 31.4 metres inside, the longest barn in Somerset, (see Country Life Vol. 112 p. 1117 and Buckler drawing, Taunton Museum). Scheduled Ancient Monument.

Listing NGR: ST5363916271