Barn, Outshut And Single Storey Range At Frog Lane Farm

Barn, Outshut and Single Storey Range at Frog Lane Farm, Stoke St Gregory

This is a timber-framed barn with attached former shelter sheds, dating from the second half of the 18th century, with the attached structures being slightly later in date.

The buildings are constructed on coursed and squared local lias stone footings. The barn exterior has been clad in corrugated metal sheeting, though weatherboarding survives underneath. The attached shelter sheds have blockwork and corrugated sheeting to their north-east fronts, while their north-west and south-east walls are masonry with timber framing to the upper sections. The barn roof is clad in corrugated sheeting, while the attached buildings have clay pantile roofing.

The structures form an L-shaped plan. The barn is sited on a hillslope, aligned north-west to south-east, and is rectangular with a half-hipped roof. The former shelter sheds comprise an outshut built parallel with the north-east side of the barn and a single storey range extending north-westwards. These appear to have formerly been open-fronted structures, probably cattle shelters.

The barn contains substantially intact 18th-century pegged and jointed wall-framing of substantial scantling, with surviving wall posts and wall plate. It has opposing entrances with double doors in the north-east and south-west elevations, though the south-west doors have been replaced historically. The principal north-east elevations of the former shelter sheds show evidence of their previous open-fronted nature through equally-spaced upright posts resting on stone pads visible within the outshut. The outshut has an off-centre right doorway and two multi-paned windows. The attached range has a central entrance with a plank and batten door flanked by small windows.

The barn interior has no internal divisions and a floor of lias stone flags. The roof structure comprises four trusses: tie beams to the two central trusses and collared principal rafters to the end bays, with two rows of staggered butt purlins, all pegged. The timbers, including the common rafters, all appear to date from the 18th century. The shelter sheds retain internal evidence of former weatherboarding, and the pegged roof timbers survive substantially intact, though those to the outshut have been reinforced with angled struts. The interior of the single storey range has been subdivided with blockwork partitions in the second half of the 20th century.

These farm buildings are associated with Frog Lane Farmhouse, which is dated 1744 though may be earlier, and was altered in the mid to late 19th century. In the 19th century, Frog Lane Farm was understood to be part of the estate of the prominent Barrett family, who lived at a large house called Moredon in North Curry.

The barn and attached shelter sheds are designated for their relative rarity and good preservation as timber-framed agricultural buildings in Somerset, the quality of their timber framing which displays vernacular building techniques in construction and carpentry, and their group value with the nearby Grade II listed mid-18th-century farmhouse with which they are historically related.