NHER 69779 (Building record) - Rookery Farm Barn, Church Street

Rookery Farm Barn, Church Street.
Previously recorded under NHER 40946.

July 1983. Listed, Grade II.
Listing Description excerpt:
"Five-stead barn, dated 1810 of red brick and red and black pantiles. Two pairs of barn doors on south face, with shallow brick buttresses at angles and doors. Curved oak lintels above the doors supporting segmental brick arches with dated and initialled key bricks. Single ventilation slits in each bay. Brick dentil eaves, hipped roofs, with 'catslide roof' to the north. Opposed butt purlin roof, tie beams with knees. Flagstone threshing floor."
Information from (S1).
Please consult the National Heritage List for England (S1) for the current listing details.
P. Watkins (HES), 11 November 2025.

August 2012. Field Observation.
Site meeting.
Four tie beams to a typical 18th-century hipped roof (the 1810 date may, however, indicate the date of the barn) on red brick walls with former double threshing threshing floors exited via two arches with segmental heads, curiously of different heights, opposite tall openings to wall plate. The roof has wedge-tenoned butt purlins into single mortises with diagonal pegging. Collars halved onto principal rafters. Queen struts and compression colllars. The tie beams are placed below the level of the wall plate and connected to it by inverted knee braces. This curious arrangement may be the result of grain having been stored in the attic storey where the the pressure on the side walls would be excessive. The side walls were necessary to contain the grain and the pressure was transferred to the ties by the knee braces. (Two ties are to be raised to wall plate level). Catslide lean-to to north side. Arched openings have long pieces of timber incorporated into the brickwork of the jambs: in order to incoporate lining or to hold protection baulks to safeguard walls from cart wheel hubs. Ventilation loops with serifs and central lozenges. Wall plates are re-used timbers from a timber-framed building and general quality of timber very irregular. (see photos).
Previously recorded under NHER 40946.
S. Heywood (HES), 01 August 2012.