| Tithe Barn, Lenham | |
|---|---|
 | |
  Location within Kent | |
| General information | |
| Town or city | Lenham |
| Country | England |
| Coordinates | 51°14′10″N0°43′07″E / 51.236093°N 0.718656°E |
| Completed | late 14th century |
The Tithe Barn in Lenham, Kent, England is a large medieval tithe barn to the south of St Mary's Church. It was probably built in the late 14th century and is a Grade I listed building.
Lenham is a market village and civil parish in Kent situated on the southern edge of the North Downs, halfway between Maidstone and Ashford. The picturesque square in the village has two public houses, a couple of restaurants, and a tea-room. Lenham has a population of 3,370 according to the 2011 Census.
In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages lasted from the 5th to the 15th century. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and merged into the Renaissance and the Age of Discovery. The Middle Ages is the middle period of the three traditional divisions of Western history: classical antiquity, the medieval period, and the modern period. The medieval period is itself subdivided into the Early, High, and Late Middle Ages.
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.
The timber framed structure has internal aisles on both sides and both ends and sits on a timber sill supported on a stone plinth or on stone pedestals. It is nine bays long, two of which were added in the late 15th century or early 16th century and is weatherboarded with a tiled hip roof. The main part of the roof is supported on crown post trusses with the aisle roofs formed by raking rafters between the wall studs and the main truss posts. [1] [2]
In architecture, a bay is the space between architectural elements, or a recess or compartment. Bay comes from Old French baee, meaning an opening or hole.
A hip roof, hip-roof or hipped roof, is a type of roof where all sides slope downwards to the walls, usually with a fairly gentle slope. Thus a hipped roof house has no gables or other vertical sides to the roof.
A crown post is a term in traditional timber framing for a post in roof framing which stands on a tie beam or collar beam and supports a collar plate. Historically, crown posts were called king posts, but this usage is confusing and obsolete. A crown post is designed to be in a compression and transfers weight to the tie beam, where a king post is designed to be in tension and supports the tie beam. In the U.K a crown strut is similar to a crown post but does not carry a plate.
The barn belonged to St Augustine's, Canterbury, and was originally one of a pair, but the other burnt down in 1962. [1]
St Augustine's Abbey was a Benedictine monastery in Canterbury, Kent, England. The abbey was founded in 598 and functioned as a monastery until its dissolution in 1538 during the English Reformation. After the abbey's dissolution, it underwent dismantlement until 1848. Since 1848, part of the site has been used for educational purposes and the abbey ruins have been preserved for their historical value.
