| Summary : Wanborough Manor Great Barn is a 14th century barn with 17th and 18th century alterations. Initially interpreted as a tithe barn, Wanborough Barn was in fact originally built and used by the Cistercian monks of Waverley Abbey, who owned Wanborough Manor as a grange from 1130 until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1536. The building then passed into private hands and was used as a barn until the 1990s. It was extensively restored in 1997 and is now owned by Guildford Borough Council. The barn is 33.55m long, 9.7m wide and is 5.49m high to the wall plate. It is timber framed on a red and blue brick plinth with weatherboard cladding and brick infill to exposed frames on the ends. The cladding is horizontal but grooves on the underside of the wall plate suggest it would have originally been vertical. It has a tiled hipped roof with a gablet to the left end and a gable to the right end. However, evidence suggests that the roof was originally hipped. It has seven framed bays with central full height wagon doors and there are two other doors, one which is blocked. The front interior has arcaded posts with dovetailed joints between tie beams and arcade plates. There are also lateral braced crown posts. Dendrochronology has provided a construction date of 1388; however timbers dating to the late 13th and early 14th century were reused in its construction. The north and south aisles were partially rebuilt after 1705 and the end aisle was added in the 18th century. |
More information : A 15th century barn with 17th and 18th century alterations. It is timber framed on a red and blue brick plinth with weatherboard cladding and brick infill to exposed frame on ends. It has a tiled hipped roof with a gablet to the left end and a gable to the right end. It has seven framed bays with central full height wagon doors. There is a blocked plank door to left and another door to the left hand return.
The front interior has arcaded posts with dovetailed joints between tie beams and arcade plates. There are also lateral braced crown posts. There is evidence that both ends of the roof were originally hipped. (1)
Tithe barn, similar to the normal Surrey barn but larger, measuring 95ft by 30ft. It has weatherboarded and brick sides, a tile roof with timber framed ends. The roof is complicated with arcades and tie beams which support kingposts which go to a collar just below the ridge. (2)
Wanborough Barn was originally thought to be a 13th century barn with 14th century additions. However, it has been reappraised and is considered to be mid-late 14th century in date. It contains elements from an earlier 13th century barn including three re-used posts, a tiebeam and remnants of aisle-ties. (3)
The Great Barn at Wanborough is one of the finest surviving medieval timber-framed buildings in Surrey.
It measures 33.55m long, 9.7m wide and is 5.49m high to the wall plate and comprises a seven-bay aisled barn with large timbers supporting a tile clad roof. The roof was originally hipped, but is now gabled. The side
walls are part brick and part horizontal boarding, which replaced earlier vertical boarding identified from grooves on the underside of the wall plate.
It has the typical barn feature of different sized doors (one side is higher than the other) which allowed loaded wagons to enter on the higher side and then leave empty on the lower one.
Dendrochronology indicates that the barn dates to 1388. However it includes a number of earlier re-used materials, including two octagonal timber posts, (possibly from Waverley Abbey) dating to c1308-1340 and five other reused timbers. Three notched lap-joints are very interesting as they can be identified to the period 1150-1250 and are therefore amongst the earliest carpentry timbers in Surrey. Dendrochronology also indicates that later alterations were carried out in 1705.
Wanborough barn was not a tithe barn, but was originally built and used by the Cistercian monks of Waverley Abbey, who owned
Wanborough Manor as a Grange from 1130 until the Dissolution in 1536.
The building then passed into private hands and was used as a barn until the 1990s. It was extensively restored in 1997 and is now owned by Guildford Borough Council. (4)
Wanborough Great Barn, near Guildford, Surrey dates from 1388. It was built by the Cistercian monks from Waverly Abbey. (5)
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