The Barley Barn | |
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General information | |
Location | Cressing Temple, Essex |
Country | England |
Coordinates | 51°50′14.1″N00°36′39.5″E / 51.837250°N 0.610972°E |
Construction started | c.1220 |
Owner | Essex County Council |
Listed Building – Grade I |
The Barley Barn is an architecturally important medieval barn, part of a complex of farm buildings at Cressing Temple, Essex, England. The barn was built for the Knights Templar in the early thirteenth century (dendrochronological analysis has given a date of around 1220). It has been claimed to be the oldest standing timber-framed barn in the world. [1] [2]
The manor of Cressing was granted to the Knights Templar in the 12th century, and they are assumed to have commissioned the barn. Scientific evidence suggests a felling date for the timber of the barn of around 1220. [3] [4]
Pope Clement V disbanded the order in 1312. [5] The estate at Cressing passed to the Knights Hospitaller. It has since had other changes of ownership. The barn was modified in later centuries, [2] but remained in agricultural use until recent times.
The Barley Barn is 38 metres (125 ft) long and 14 metres (46 ft) wide. Its construction displays 13th century features such as the use of straight square-section timber, passing braces, and certain types of joints and methods of assembly. [6]
The roof has been tiled from the beginning, and would have weighed close to 70 tonnes. [7]
The Barley Barn is a Grade I listed building. Essex County Council acquired Cressing Temple in the 1980s and it has been converted into a heritage attraction. [8]
A tithe barn was a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing rents and tithes. Farmers were required to give one-tenth of their produce to the established church. Tithe barns were usually associated with the village church or rectory, and independent farmers took their tithes there. The village priests did not have to pay tithes—the purpose of the tithe being their support. Some operated their own farms anyway. The former church property has sometimes been converted to village greens.
Templecombe is a village in Somerset, England, situated on the A357 road five miles south of Wincanton, 12 miles (19 km) east of Yeovil, and 30 miles (48 km) west of Salisbury. It is in the Blackmore Vale.
A cruck or crook frame is a curved timber, one of a pair, which support the roof of a building, historically used in England and Wales. This type of timber framing consists of long, generally naturally curved, timber members that lean inwards and form the ridge of the roof. These posts are then generally secured by a horizontal beam which then forms an "A" shape. Several of these "crooks" are constructed on the ground and then lifted into position. They are then joined together by either solid walls or cross beams which aid in preventing 'racking'.
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Cressing Temple is a medieval site situated between Witham and Braintree in Essex, close to the villages of Cressing and White Notley. It was amongst the very earliest and largest of the possessions of the Knights Templar in England, and is currently open to the public as a visitor attraction.
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