Farm Buildings

The Great Barn, Ashleworth, Gloucestershire

Client: National TrustThe Great Barn, Ashleworth, Gloucestershire
Site: This Grade I listed barn is one of the great medieval Cotswolds barns. It is a relatively late example and was built in c.1496-7 by Abbot Newland of the Abbey of St Augustine, Bristol. It is ten bays long with two threshing floors and originally comprised two five-bay barns built end to end with a stone dividing wall (now demolished).
Summary of Project: Documentary research, photography, measured survey and detailed archaeological analysis of the structure.
Objective: The project was designed to inform a programme of repair and provide a better understanding of the building which could be used in its presentation to the public.

West Wyke, South Tawton, Devon

Client: PrivateWest Wyke, South Tawton, Devon
Site: Linhays are a type of lofted open-fronted cattleshed common in south-west England. These were associated with a Grade II* listed longhouse with medieval origins. They form three sides of the farmyard and, Grade II listed in their own right, probably date from the late 17th or early 18th century.
Summary of Project: Measured survey and appraisal of the buildings from an historic and archaeological point of view.
Objective: To provide a record of the farm buildings before their repair and conversion to non-intensive domestic use.

Oldhay, Altarnun, Cornwall

Client: PrivateOldhay, Altarnun, Cornwall
Site: Although unlisted the group of farm buildings comprise a well-preserved and almost complete set which were designed, as was normal at the time, for a mixed farming regime. They were built in the late 18th – early 19th century and modernised, with some rearrangement, in the mid 19th century. By the 1880s a long drive power system was introduced bringing power from a waterwheel in the valley to the steading. There was minimal 20th-century modernisation.
Summary of Project: Measured survey and appraisal of the buildings from an historic and archaeological point of view.
Objective: The first stage of a projected programme of repair, grant-assisted by Natural England.

Beetor, North Tawton, Devon

Client: Dartmoor National ParkBeetor, North Tawton, Devon Authority
Site: The old farmhouse at Beetor had suffered a fire in the 1940s, and although partly ruinous at the time of survey clearly had its origins as a medieval longhouse. It was associated with a particularly rich and comprehensive group of farm buildings in a parlous state of repair. Some, such as the dairy, bakehouse and the original shippon are in the main house range itself. There is also a separate double shippon, a threshing barn, pigsties, cartshed, bank barn and the remains of stables. Subsidiary features include a set of beeboles in a garden wall, a goose linhay, dog kennel and a butterwell. The threshing barn fronts the drive whilst the other farm buildings are arranged round inner and outer courtyards. The remains of a remarkably sophisticated, but disused, water supply were also evident. This was fed by a buried stone-lined leat, brought round the tor along the contour line from an adjacent farm to the south west. This leat had supplied a head pond in the outer courtyard which controlled the flow into the main pond in the inner courtyard.
Summary of Project: Documentary research, measured survey and appraisal of the buildings from an historic and archaeological point of view.
Objective: To provide a lasting record of the superior group of traditional farm buildings whilst they were still standing.