Building record MDS 190 - Barn at Poplar Farm, Chapel Road

The grade II-listed farmhouse is a timber-framed structure with a brick façade ascribed by Historic England ‘probably’ to the late-16th century but possibly dating from 1634 – which date is carved on an original window lintel. The farm extended to a relatively large 99.5 acres at the time of the tithe survey in 1839 and an extensive complex of 19th century or older farm buildings adjoins the house and road on the east.

The weatherboarded threshing barn which adjoins the road at right-angles is a substantial four-bay structure with a high quality oak frame of the early-17th century incorporating midrails and externally trenched wall braces. The barn faced the house to the west and retains a good gault-brick threshing floor and a mid-19th century rear lean-to of shuttered clay, but its roof was renewed in the 20th century and as a result, despite its early date, the building no longer meets the current guidelines for listing in its own right. The stable flanking the road also dates from the early-17th century and was originally detached before an extension in the early-19th century linked it to the barn. Trenched wall braces in the distinctive 17th century style can be seen in the present gable, and the opposite gable still survives in the hay loft, but the rest of the structure was almost completely rebuilt in the 18th century. A small brick chaff box was added shortly after 1839, along with a shelter-shed of shuttered clay to the north of the yard. Although stripped of historic fixtures and fittings as part of a conversion into a piggery during the late-20th century these buildings survive much as depicted on the 1885 Ordnance Survey, with the addition of cement-block lean-to extensions to the shelter-shed and barn. The presence of three early-17th century buildings on the same site is relatively unusual and of considerable historic interest as their relationship affords an insight into the layout of local farmsteads at this period (S1).