West Pennard Court Barn (which is also known as the Court Barn, West Bradley) is a late 14th or early 15th century

tithe barn A tithe barn was a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing rents and tithe A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious orga ...

which was built for

Glastonbury Abbey Glastonbury Abbey was a monastery in Glastonbury, Somerset, England. Its ruins, a grade I listed building and scheduled ancient monument, are open as a visitor attraction. The abbey was founded in the 8th century and enlarged in the 10th. It w ...

. The Grade I

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

is between

West Pennard West Pennard (or West Pennard Manor) is a village and civil parish east of Glastonbury, situated at the foot of Pennard Hill, in the Mendip District, Mendip district of Somerset, England. The parish includes the hamlet (place), hamlets of Coxbridg ...

and

West Bradley West Bradley is a village and civil parish 4 miles south-east of Glastonbury in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Hornblotton and Lottisham. Hornblotton Green is a traditional English community with a ...

in the English county of

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. The barn was restored by the

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape) is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the destructive 'restoration' of ancient buildings occurring in ...

in the 1930s following the collapse of the roof and then given to the

National Trust The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...

. At long and wide it is the smallest of the barns associated with the abbey. It has a

cruck 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 ...

braced

timber framed Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

roof and is supported by two-stage

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es.

History

The barn which was originally known as Parson's Barn, was built on the orders of the Abbot of

in the late 14th or early 15th century. There is no written record of the exact date and there is some debate about the likely age of the building based on the architectural features. Along with several others barns it was used to collect the

tithe A tithe (; from Old English: ''teogoþa'' "tenth") is a one-tenth part of something, paid as a contribution to a religious organization or compulsory tax to government. Today, tithes are normally voluntary and paid in cash or cheques or more ...

s or dues to the abbey, often one tenth of a farm's produce. It fell within the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to des ...

of Glaston Twelve Hides which was named after the hides who gave

food rent Food render or food rent (Old English: ''foster'') was a form of tax in kind (Old English: ''feorm'') levied in Anglo-Saxon England, consisting of essential foodstuffs provided by territories such as '' regiones'', multiple estates or hundreds to ...

. The West Pennart Court Barn is the smallest of those which survive. A survey in 1932 found that the roof was cracked and it eventually collapsed in 1935. In 1936 the roof structure was straightened, preserving the medieval

truss A truss is an assembly of ''members'' such as beams, connected by ''nodes'', that creates a rigid structure. In engineering, a truss is a structure that "consists of two-force members only, where the members are organized so that the assembl ...

es where possible, and covered with clay tiles. The restoration was undertaken by the

, with the work being funded by Roger Clark of the local shoemakers C. & J. Clark who bought the derelict barn for £5. It has been owned by the

since 1938. Designation as a Grade I

first took place in 1961. A survey in 2002 found minor repairs were needed to the doors and wall plate.

Architecture

The rectangular five-bay barn is long and wide, although it was previously larger. The middle bay is slightly longer than the others because of the central

porch A porch (from Old French ''porche'', from Latin ''porticus'' "colonnade", from ''porta'' "passage") is a room or gallery located in front of an entrance of a building. A porch is placed in front of the facade of a building it commands, and form ...

es. The barn is built of local

Blue Lias The Blue Lias is a geological formation in southern, eastern and western England and parts of South Wales, part of the Lias Group. The Blue Lias consists of a sequence of limestone and shale layers, laid down in latest Triassic and early Jurassi ...

stone with some better quality oolitic ashlar used for the quoins on the corners and the porches which provided cover for goods being loaded and unloaded at the doors. It is supported by two-stage

es reaching to three quarters of the height of the walls. Each of the side walls has ventilation slits, or breathers, with those in the end walls being in the shape of a croix pommée. The barn originally had an attached

dovecote A dovecote or dovecot , doocot ( Scots) or columbarium is a structure intended to house pigeons or doves. Dovecotes may be free-standing structures in a variety of shapes, or built into the end of a house or barn. They generally contain pige ...

on the western end, and still has niches for birds inside the barn and on the east gable wall. The dovecote was adapted into a calf shed. The roof was originally

thatched Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

but now is tiled, and is supported by

bracing to the

timber frame Timber framing (german: Holzfachwerk) and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden ...

of six principal

es. The design of the roof is similar to that in the other tithe barns of Glastonbury Abbey at Pilton, Manor Farm, Doulting and Glastonbury itself, which is now part of the

Somerset Rural Life Museum The Somerset Rural Life Museum is situated in Glastonbury, Somerset, UK. It is a museum of the social and agricultural history of Somerset, housed in buildings surrounding a 14th-century barn once belonging to Glastonbury Abbey. It was used fo ...

. The carriage porch where wagons would have been unloaded is covered by the sloping roof.

References

{{reflist, 33em Buildings and structures completed in the 15th century Grade I listed buildings in Mendip District Buildings and structures in Mendip District National Trust properties in Somerset Tourist attractions in Somerset Barns in England 15th-century architecture in the United Kingdom Tithe barns in Europe

History

Architecture

See also

References