Description
Behind is a small privy and an open pen used to mark sheep. This is an important range of buildings forming part of the farm unit.
The barn was rebuilt in 1870 (the date is carved into a beam in the inserted loft to the left of the entrance). Used now as a tool shed, i8t has been used by the previous occupants, the Bowes family, as a garage - they contracted out threshers and trators in the 1940's and used the barn to service and keep the vehicles. It also housed the generator.
The boiler house is contemporary with the barn, built/modified at the same time,, 1870 is marked into the slate lilntel above the door. It was originally a down house with a fire place and girdle plate for scones etc. and an inside tap and drain for washing, and a mangle. The fireplace was replaced with a blacksmith's hearth, and is now blocked up. A boiler was kept in here to dissolve paste for sheep dipping, the building is now used as a feed store.
The middenstead is a later addition to the barn, built in the first half of this century (and the slurry pit was built approx. 1910's). Built as a covered middenstead, the remains of muck can still be seen high up on the wall, and used later as a shelter shed for calves, now used for storage and keeping sick sheep.
The privy is disused and derelict and is some distance from the house, built sometime after 1988 and used until WWI. The sheep smitting pen is an open squarish structure used to enclose sheep whilst marking them, also built just after 1888. The privy and pen are in a separate yard with an earth ground surface which slopes down from W to E and is bordered by building *2, the 1888 barn.
WALLS - The barn and boiler house are of exposed surface gathered cobbles of volcanic (igneous) stone, slate and sandstone, random coursed. Horizontally laid slate thins forming layers between the cobbles, laid in mortar, large horizontal boulders at quoins. The stones are laid at an angle to throw the water. The exterior back wall has a small cylindrical piece of limestone, possibly from boring, or it is not local. Round ventilation hole in E gable wall. Middenstead - as with barn but with larger cobbles and less well coursed. Privy - as with barn, mortared and with quoins. Sheep smitting pen - dry walls of gathered cobble, added on to the privy.
ROOF - Barn - gabled, slate covered (local slate is Kirby Slate), laid in diminishing courses, capped with a sandstone ridge. Plain close verge with the purlins capped in thin slates. Cast iron and plastic guttering. 2 bay principal rafter roof with one simple tie beam truss, pitch pine, machine sawn. Through purlins carrying sawn rafters, ridge purlin. 9 wooden floor joists for the inserted half roof (to the left of the entrance). There is a non-load bearing RSJ running from the entrance to the back wall, probably inserted when the barn was used as a garage.
Boiler House - the roof claddins is continous from the barn. Inside - simple roof construction of 5 purlins carrying the rafters, torched between rafters, blackened by soot, with a very blackened triangle in the apes from the fire below. 2 narrow round trucnks (possible larch) span acros the room either side of the frieplace. They rest in niches between the gable wall and the barn wall and are non-load bearing and were used to hang hessian sacks over, and buther sheep. Chimney - square, projecting in gable, top part cememnt render, slate water tabling, botton part, as walling material, recent clay chimney pot.
Middenstead - lean-to, slate laid in diminishing courses, plain close verge, on the S end the wood is capped by slate thins. Plain cast iron guttering in poor condition. Half tie beam of machine sawn pitch pine, and oak, 2 round reused hard wood purlins carrying sawn softwood rafters, torched between rafters. Another beam at the entrance.
Privy - no roof although some slates remain jutting from the barn showing where the lean-to would have been.
Sheep-pen - no roof; open pen.
INTERIOR
Barn - Door - double doors no longer remain, large intrnal machine sawn pitch pine lintel indicates where they once sttod with holes in the underside. Corrugated iron porch about a metre around the doorway. Window - Blocked window, stone lintel, slate cill, narrows inwards towards the bacck wall, blocked from the outside. Niche to the left of the entrance with stone cill and lintel. Hatch in wall between barn and midden stead, stone lintel, slate cill, wooden shutter door with butterfly and a hinge. To the left of the entrance is an inserted roof to provide loft space above. Walls - mainly exposed, some parts recently cemenet rendered. Floor - to the left of the entrance the floor is cobbled laid in earth, the remainder is 30cm lower down and is of concrete with a central section of slate, (this is where the floor was lowreed to fit a new lorry in and the paved area below was found). There was a generator and engine in the barn, to complement the electricity supply from the stream. Large carpenters' bench remains.
Boiler House - Door - 4 plank, 4 batten 2 hinges, door surround is at an angle, rising up to the E. Iron handle and bolt lock. Slate lintel outside with 1870 inscribed, reused timber lintel inside. On the outside to the right of the door 'JB' is carved into a stone (James Bowes). Windows - 1) Large deep window, mosltly blocked by breeze blocks except for a top length of 3 panes on bottom hinges, opening into the room. Window cill. 2) recent glass pane fixed. Slate lintel and cill. Inscription on external lintel 'WB WB' (William Bowes). Walls - 1980's cement render half way up, the rest is white washed plaster. Floor - recent concrete. Recess in E wall with slate shelves, with a lower wooden shelf extending half way into the roomm as a wooden sconce, resting on a cement pillar. ON the outside wall there is a piece of wood sticking out, possible to do with the sconce. W (gable) wall has 2 recesses eithere side of the now blocked fireplace. The recesses reach up to half way up the wall. There is a fiddle drill (to be sold, or kept by the Atkinson's). On it is: 'The Aerd Broadcast Seed Sower'.
Middenstead - Windows - 1) Blocked, slate cill. 2) Partly filled by breeze blocks, except one pane of glass in the top, fixed, slate cill. 3) Large window, formerly a door for an opening for mucking out and loading calves. Now mainly breeze blocked with a car windscreen as a window. Hatch way into the barn. Wooden feeding rack on the E wall. Walls - Part lime washed. Floor - To the left of the entrance the floor is covered by slate slabs (11/2 m long x 1/2 m wide, laid across). The res is concrete. The slabs extend into the court yard and cover an 8-10 foot deep slurry pit. Slurry drains from the shippons under the yard and collect in this pit. A wall extends from the middenstead into the yard on which lies more slabs to form a ledge upon which stands a round sandstone blade sharpener (to be sold), and the cahin pump which would pump the slurry up by hand. The pit is still used but is now emptied by a machine pumep. The pump is cast iron - 5058 Bamfords Patend Chain Pump Uttoexeter.
Privey - Door - Door jambs remains. Window - One can see where the window was but now the wall is partly missing. Wall - Lime washed. Floor - possibly earth, difficult to tell because of deep litter. Niche to side of drop box, it has a wooden seat with a single round hole and a slate slab front. The paved drain slopes down below the seat and appears in the external wall with a slate covering over it.
Sheep Smitting Pen - Wooden gate, slatted, pintel hinge in reverse at the top, tulip head pivot hinge at the bottom, metal lift latch. Opposite the gate is a little hatch with a wooden door and metal bolt, this is the exti for sheep once marked. Floor - There is a step up into the pen, the floor is cobbled, laid in concrete. Large niche to the left of the entrance, the stones are still red due to paint. Small drainage hole in the bottom of the E back wall.
(NT VBS Surveyor; 1995)