Listed Building: MAIN BARN AT CHURCH FARM (503097)

DENNINGTON 274/0/10006 FRAMLINGHAM ROAD 27-FEB-07 MAIN BARN AT CHURCH FARM GV II Barn. C18. Timber frame on brick plinth, weatherboarded exterior, corrugated iron roof, stone flagged floor. PLAN: This is a four-bay barn without aisles. The threshing bay is second from the east and has opposed double doors in both north and south elevations, with a midstrey porch over the north entrance. There are two bays to the west of the threshing bay. There are later lean-to extensions to the south. EXTERIOR: The walls are weatherboarded to door height and plastered above, the east gable clad in vertical boards. There is a door flanked by two windows in the east elevation, and a single window under the gable in the west elevation. INTERIOR: Much of the original timber framing is intact. The walls are constructed of closely spaced studs with plaster infill, the wall plate carried on posts, both supporting the tie beams which are knee braced to the posts. The roof is of queen post construction without principal rafters, with clasped purlins and collars. The timbers are not substantial, and the tie beams have been supported at points of weakness by additional lengths of timber bolted to the underside of the beam. The rafters rest on the wall plate and join at the apex of the roof without a ridge piece, and there are intermittent collars between rafters in the two west bays, some evidently new. Long windbraces are set diagonally against the rafters on both sides of the roof. Behind the rafters are horizontal C20 planks to which the corrugated iron sheets covering the roof are attached. The porch has a hipped roof and two collars, and full height double doors: the double doors to the north are lower. Immediately to the east of the entrances and the stone flagged threshing floor is a half height timber partition, creating a separate space with access through the door in the east elevation. HISTORY: This traditional threshing barn is a major component of an early farmstead which in the late C19 consisted of a late C16 farmhouse, listed at Grade II, and a possibly C17 granary and stables. All three buildings appear on the 1889 OS map. Until the early C20 these buildings, and one other to the north of the farmhouse, made up the whole of Church Farm. The changing overall footprint of the barn in the late C19 and early C20 seems to represent the addition and removal of lean-to structures to north and south, while its essential plan has remained the same since then. Many more buildings have been added to the farm in the course of the C20, although the early buildings still survive. SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: Historic farmsteads and their buildings make a major contribution to the richly varied character of our countryside, and illustrate the long history of farming and settlement in the English landscape. The barn at Church Farm is a remarkably intact example of an C18 threshing barn, and has group value with the C16 farmhouse (q.v.), listed at Grade II. Substantially complete examples of farm buildings of this period are of sufficient interest and rarity to merit protection, especially if they relate to a listed farmhouse.