Barn at Roche Old Court, Winterslow, Wiltshire

Summary

A six-bay aisled threshing barn of post medieval date probably built between 1650 and 1750, with C19, C20, and C21 repair and alteration.

Description

A six-bay aisled threshing barn of post medieval date probably built between 1650 and 1750, with C19, C20, and C21 repair and alteration.

MATERIALS: a timber-framed aisled barn built on a brick and flint sill wall with patch repairs in brick, concrete, and concrete block. The external walls are clad in replacement timber weatherboarding. The roof is covered in plain clay tiles.

PLAN: orientated on a north-west to south-east axis with the farmyard elevation facing north-east, the aisled barn is of six bays divided by five pairs of aisle posts with two pairs also forming the end walls; the south-east end wall has partially collapsed (2020). The opposing doorways to bay 4 have been altered with the blocking of the north-east doorway, and the addition of a porch to the south-west doorway. There is a low timber partition between bay 4 and bay 5 to form a two-bay cowshed at the north-west end.

EXTERIOR: the weatherboarded exterior stands on a sill wall that increases in height to accommodate the slope of the site. It has a steeply pitched roof with half hips at either end (the south-east hip has collapsed), and a half-hipped porch projection to the fourth bay of the south-west elevation. To the north-east elevation a late C20 door has been inserted towards the north end and a window towards the south end.

INTERIOR: the timber framing comprises a continuous sill beam with jowled wall posts that support the wall plate, with one curved brace to bay 2, and horizontal spurs that run from the wall posts to the jowled arcade posts that stand on padstones. Each arcade post has two straight braces that support the arcade plate, and one straight brace that supports the tie beam. Some of these braces are later replacements, but those forming the cross frame between bay 3 and 4, and bay 5 and 6, are original. The higher set curved braces between the aisle post and the arcade plate to the either side of bay 4, suggest that there were opposing threshing doors. The north-east doorway has been blocked and the south-west doorway has been extended forward to form a projecting porch, with later wall plates and horizontal braces lapped onto the aisle posts.

The northern two bays are sub-divided from the rest of the barn by a low timber partition atop a brick wall, which runs across the cross frame between bay 4 and bay 5, and stops at the north-eastern arcade post, allowing access between the partitioned area and the main barn via the eastern aisle. There are a series of low brick troughs against the partition, the south-west, and the north-west wall.

The cross frame at the north-west end has principal rafters that terminate at the high collar to form a half hip. Vertical posts between the sill beam and tie beam, and the tie beam and collar, with angled straight braces from the sill beam to the arcade posts, support the weatherboarding. The cross frame at the south-east end collapsed in August 2020.

The roof trusses are formed of the tie beam, principal rafters, raking queen struts, and high-level collars. The principal rafters support two rows of purlins and there is an additional purlin beneath the arcade plate supporting the aisle roof. There are straight braces between the principal rafter and upper row of purlins. There is some later secondary bracing that is roughly finished and of varying scantling, that is lapped onto the original structure to support the purlins.

History

Threshing barns are generally the oldest and most impressive farm buildings to be found on farms, and the traditional threshing barn plan of a central threshing floor with opposing doors flanked by outer bays providing storage for the crop, remained comparatively unaltered between the C12 and early C19. Threshing machines were introduced from the later C18, and barns from this period onwards began to be adapted to accommodate the new machines. The introduction of the portable steam engine in the 1850s heralded the end of the traditional threshing barn, and many were converted into cow houses and fodder processing and storage buildings after the 1880s.

The aisled barn at Roche Old Court, is, as indicated by evidence for opposing doorways, thought to have been built as a threshing barn probably between 1650 and 1750. It had previously been claimed that the barn had earlier, possibly medieval, origins but recent research demonstrates that this was based on the apocryphal status of Roche Old Court as the medieval manorial holding for Winterslow (the original manorial holding is known to have been located on what is now Hills Farm between East and Middle Winterslow). It was first claimed that Roche Old Court was the original manor house in 1937, by the then owner, Hugh Trevor-Cox. This was refuted but Trevor-Cox appears to have continued with his assertions and soon afterwards the farmstead began to be referred to as Roche Old Court.

The architectural and documentary evidence suggests that Roche Old Court in fact originated as a post-medieval farmstead, with a loose courtyard arrangement of farm buildings, and this would accord with the barn’s many features that are suggestive of a C17 date. These include the deeply incised form of the semi-circular and vertical carpenter’s marks; the form of the straight braces to the north end walls; the raking queen struts between the tie beam and collar; the curved wall brace that rises from the wall post to the wall plate of bay 2; and the half-hipped roof arrangement.

In terms of documentary evidence, the earliest maps for the farmstead are Andrew and Dury’s maps of 1773 and 1810, where the site is labelled as ‘Eyston Farm’. Easton Farm is later depicted on an 1820 estate map for the new manor house of Roche Court (Grade II*) which was designed by C H Tatham and built in about 1809 for Francis Thomas Egerton Esq, approximately 350m to the east of the farmstead. This map shows the farmhouse of Easton Farm in its L-plan form, and to the south-west a large L-shaped range of farm buildings that includes the barn which defines the south-western boundary of the farmyard, with an attached range (stables and cartshed) forming the north-western boundary. The barn is then shown on the 1840 tithe map as having a projection to the north-east elevation. The accompanying tithe apportionment identifies the farmstead as ‘Roche Court Farmhouse and Gardens’, and as part of the estate of F T Egerton Esq, suggesting that it functioned as the home farm to Roche Court at this time. This is supported by a lease dated 1860 between Egerton and Parsons (the tenant farmer) which describes the farmstead as ‘Easton Farm otherwise Roche Court Farm’. The farmstead is labelled as Roche Court Farm on the subsequent OS map of 1876.

Since the barn’s construction it has been altered and repaired. The roof, which was probably originally thatched with straw, has been recovered in plain clay tiles, and there is a significant proportion of timbers with redundant mortice holes suggesting that they have been re-used from elsewhere in the barn, or are from another building. It is also possible that some of these re-used timbers relate to the barn’s original construction. Other alterations include the removal of the porch to the north-east elevation in the mid-to late C19 and the subsequent blocking of this entrance in the mid-to late C20; the addition of a porch to the south-west elevation; the insertion of a cowshed at its northern end in the late C19 or early C20; and rebuilt sections of the sill wall in brick and concrete block. There was also a later opening in the south-east wall, but this no longer survives with the collapse of this end of the barn in 2020.

The farm buildings fell out of agricultural use in the late C20.

Reasons for Listing

The Barn at Roche Old Court, built between 1650 and 1750, is listed at Grade II* for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

*     as a rare and significant surviving example of pre-1750 six-bay aisled threshing barn;
*     as a well-constructed and regionally-distinctive example of its type, exhibiting good quality craftsmanship, and contributing to our understanding of regional building and farming traditions in this part of Wiltshire from the C17 onwards;
*     for its overall good degree of survival, and although there is evidence of some repair and alteration, it continues to retain a significant proportion of its C17 fabric.

Historic interest:

* as part of the Wiltshire tradition of large aisled threshing barns reflecting the importance of corn as the dominant arable crop in this part of Wiltshire from the medieval period to the C19;
* as a key building in a pre-1750 farmstead group, that by the early C19 formed part of the Roche Court (Grade II*) estate of Francis Thomas Egerton Esq.

Group value:

* with the principal farmhouse Roche Old Court (Grade II*), and the C18 stables and cartshed (Grade II) that together form a loose courtyard arrangement of associated farm buildings;
* with Roche Court (Grade II*).

External Links

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