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Cistercian Barn
A Lost Cistercian Barn at Shilton By.
P. L. HEYWORTH
In their exhaustive monograph on
the barns of the abbey of Beaulieu,
Horn and
Born declare that of the estimated two
to three thousand barns once existed
in
England, only two certainly remain-
those of Great Berkshire, which is
intact,
and Beaulieu-s Leonard's, Hampshire,
which is ruinous. Both are former
granges
of Beaulieu.. On the evidence of an
ink sketch plan in a scrap-book in the
Avery
Library Columbia University, New York,
Horn and Born allow the Possibility
that
a third example_ of a Cistercian barn
may have existed substantially intact
at
Shilton Oxon as late as the middle of
the nineteenth century.2
That Horn and Born did not attempt
to verify their conjecture is
presumably
explained by a note at the foot of the
sketch, in the hand of Walter whose
work
it All now destroyed '.3 In fact the
barn existed and was still used as a
barn
until very recently. It escaped
recognition because with the loss at
some time of its high gabled pitched
roof of stone and slate and its timber-
framed
interior, and their replacement by a
corrugated iron roof, it also lost the
distinctive character of a medieval
aisled barn.. But the evidence for its
identity is decisive. Although only
the shell of the barn remains; the
overall
measurements are exactly those
recorded in Waller's plan and the
siting, of the
door openings is the same. The
existence of an original timber-framed
interior
subdivided lengthwise into a nave and
two aisles is confirmed by the
survival of
two masonry corbels on the inside of
the SW gable wall and their
disposition is
such as to leave no doubt that they
were designed to carry the terminal
truss
required by the original framing shown
in Walter's sketch plan.
Local tradition has it that the
barn was destroyed by fire.- At any
rate
little of the timbers remains . Two of
the principal posts which supported
the
timber framing and divided the
interior into nave and aides survive
as lintels
for the main doors is 13 X
13" .the other 14' x !4', and are
respectively 13 8"
and 13’ 11" long ; they display
mortises 10’ 3" (cut at right
angles) and 9" x
3" (cut at 45 degrees)on the same
face of the timber and 17" apart.
These must
represent respectively mortises for
(i) the Tie beam which on the aisle
side
connects the principal post with the
wall plate and (ii) the short strut
which
rises diagonally at :in angle of 45
from the principal to the strut
(joining the
Wall end of the tie beam to the head
of the principal post` and which
braces the
raking strut in the centre where it
carries a through purlin.
Two other timbers are set into the
inside wall of the N-E gable at a
height
of about ten feet from the
ground. Slightly cured and with
bevelled ends, one is 9' 6" long,
the other
9' 1" (but the outside ends are
buried in the adjacent wall) they
measure 7"x7"
It seems likely that these are two of
the heavy raking struts mentioned in
(ii)
above -which, running parallel to the
roof, rose from the wall end of file
tie
beam over the aisles and abutted the
principal post about a foot from its
top.:
It is difficult otherwise to explain
the fact that one of the inset timbers
`has
two dowels inserted! 4' 4" and 4'
10" from the beveller end, and
the other a
ssingle dowel hole 5’ 5" from the
beveled end. These can only represent
the
point at which the short diagonal
strut which extended from the main
post
outward towards the slope of the roof
intercepted (and supported) the heavy
raking strut
The argument for this barn
belonging to the abbey of Beaulieu
depends upon
proof that it stood on the land of the
manor of Shilton which King John
granted
to the abbey in the foundation charter
of 25th January 1204-5 I
know
of no documentary evidence but there
is a presumptive case. The barn stands
in
the centre of the village next to the
brook-(the Shill) and ford and is part
of
the buildings of the former Manor
Farm. The present manor house
is 'Victorian
and stands on a hill overlooking the
farm. But in the middle of the group
of
farm buildings of which the barn is
one, stands a two-storey building,
probably
late medieval in date, known as the
Old Manor; to the north-east of the
barn is
a large circular dovecote which is
probably also medieval ; to the south
of the
barn parallel to the north bank of the
stream, a few feet from and on the
north
side of it, is a long lagoon-like
stretch of water now used for rearing
water
fowl but which would serve very well
as a fish pond: on the opposite side
of the
stream is a steeply sloping field
known as the Conyger. Thus the local
associations are strongly manorial and
the grouping just described contains
all
the elements of a self sufficient
domestic manorial economy. When taken
with the
architectural evidence provided by
Waller’s nineteenth century drawing is
is
difficult not to accept that we have a
in Shilton a third example of an
aisled
Cistercian barn perhaps dating, as do
those of Great Coxwell and Beaulieu-St
Leonards, from the thirteenth
century
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