Building record CLO 064 - Outbuildings at Moat Hall Barn, Martins Lane

These buildings consist of a large open-sided cart lodge of over 19 m in length by 7 m in width and a small tractor shed. A cart lodge of similar proportions occupied the same site on the First Edition Ordnance Survey of 1884, but the existing building represents a later reconstruction. The uniformly sawn and nailed softwood of its post-and-rail walls and roof structure are typical of the 1920s and 30s, with the former clad in vertical boarding and the latter in corrugated iron. The tie-beams are supported by central posts, and the western roof-plate is bolted to internal iron angle bars and supported by hollow pre-fabricated posts of welded iron with splayed bases. The fabric of the tractor shed is very similar but its post-and-rail walls are clad in corrugated iron and incorporate a number of re-used railway sleepers, suggesting a slightly later date in the 1950s or 60s. Despite their 20th century origin both structures are of some historic interest as late examples of East Anglian farm buildings that represent the final stage of the vernacular tradition before the advent of mass-produced steel-framed sheds. The board-on-board cladding of the cart lodge reflects a late-19th century tradition and even its crudely welded iron arcade posts have a home-made quality, while the use of railway sleepers in the tractor shed continues an ancient tradition of re-using old material. Tractor sheds of this small scale were short-lived productions of the mid-20th century that were quickly made obsolete by the larger vehicles of the 1960s and 70s (S1).