Search for listed buildings

Description: Barn Immediately to the East of Whitwood Farmhouse

Address: Whitwood Farm Barn Whitwood Lane Bailiff Bridge Brighouse West Yorkshire

Grade: II

Group detail: Whitwood Lane

Full description:
Aisled barn, dated 1445 by dendrochronology, aligned approximately north-south to the east of a trackway and part of a farmstead. MATERIALS: the barn is timber framed, later encased in roughly coursed shaped stone rubble with some brick infill and a corrugated sheeting roof covering. PLAN: the barn has seven bays with a separate lower section at the north end with a single aisle on the eastern side. EXTERIOR: There are cart entries on the west side in the third and fifth bays. and smaller openings in the first and seventh bays. On the east side there are openings in the first, third (blocked), fifth and seventh bays, and there are two openings in the south end, the eastern one blocked. The northern extension in brick, stone and breezeblock, is single storey and of much less substantial construction with a lower roof line. INTERIOR: The interior of the main barn is divided into two alongside the third truss by a later internal brick wall, probably relating to the two units into which the farmhouse was divided. The first and sixth bays have a timber upper floor, with dividing walls at ground floor level. At the southern end this wall is pierced by a door and a lower opening into the main area of the barn, while at the north end there is a door and a series of five small openings at ground floor level, and a doorway leading to the upper floor. The roof structure has wall plates, arcade plate, two through purlins and ridge piece. Joints are pegged and there are carpenters' marks on some of the timbers. Some timbers have evidence of reuse in the form of unfilled sockets. Numbering from the south, the first truss has a king post with a strut on the west side, and the aisle is supported on a pier rising from the upper floor. The second truss has a queen strutt construction which in turn supports a short king post on an upper tie-beam, and a full height aisle post. The third and fourth trusses are similar. with an additional brace to the aisle post and a tie-beam in the aisle of the third truss. The fifth truss is similar without the brace and with a stone pier replacing the aisle post. The sixth truss has a king post construction, with a brace and tie-beam on the aisle post. Some timbers at the northern end of the barn are decayed and in poor condition, and there is evidence in the form of brick infill of a slight raising of the roof at the north end on the west side. HISTORY: A settlement at Whitwood is recorded as early as 1329, and deeds refer to lands at Whytwood in 1592. Surviving earthwork remains suggest a settlement site, including a trackway between the farmhouse and barn. A survey of the farmhouse and barn has produced dendrochronology (tree-ring) dates for the barn of 1445 and. less certainly, mid-C16 for the house. The barn was encased in stone at a later date, probably in the C16 or C17. Whitwood Farm is mentioned in the C18, and the barn is marked on the OS 1:10560 map published in 1854. By 1893 it had a small extension at its northern end. SOURCES Nottingham Tree-ring Dating Labratory; Tree-ring Analysis of Timbers from the Barn and House at Whitwood Farm, Baliff Bridge, Yorkshire, 2010 WYAAS HER Record, Aisled barn & farmhouse, Whitwood Farm, 2009 REASONS FOR DESIGNATION The mid-C15 timber framed barn at Whitwood, Brighouse, West Yorkshire, is designated at Grade II for the following principle reasons: * Architecture: the surviving roof structure and aisled construction of the barn is of great architectural interest as a rare survival from the late medieval period. * Historic interest: the early date of the barn is an indicator of the early growth in the prosperity of wealthy farmer-clothiers presaging the establishment of the nationally important textile industry of Yorkshire in later centuries.