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Summary

An unusual form of barn with corn storage and threshing floor at first floor level, with cow house below, and attached horse engine house with vertifal shafting. Spectacular 19th century machinery survives.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• THRESHING BARN (XIX - 1840 AD to 1880 AD (Between))

Full description

Ordnance Survey, 1880-1899, First Edition Ordnance 25 inch map (Cartographic). SDV336179.

Child, P., 2003, Conversion of Barn to Holiday Accommodation, East Liscombe Farm, East Anstey (Correspondence). SDV347099.

An unusual example of a traditional Devon farm building, as it is neither a conventional traditional corn barn built at ground level nor an orthodox "bank barn" accessed from a higher level from behind. Instead, it is a "raised barn" where the main corn storage and threshing floor is built at first floor level, requiring the pitchin up of all the crops to this height. Such barns are few in Devon. Stylistically this barn appears to have been constructed circa 1860.
The horse engine house iwas connected by vertical shafting to the threshing machine in the floor above it, and the threshing machine is still in situ. Although the machinery does not carry any makers' name by which it might be more readily dated, there is no reason to think it is not original to the barn itself. The survival of such threshing machines in Devon barns is very rare. It is a spectacular piece of 19th century machinery.
Underneath the main first floor barn space was accommodation for cattle approached through a series of round arched openings facing into an enclosed yard. Attached to the south end of the barn and built in conjunction with it is a separate first floor compartment which presumably was a granary which was accessed directly from the main barn and which also had a loading door on its front elevation.
Beneath this granary is a somewhat mysterious compartment which seems originally to have had an entrance on the south side, which has been subsequently blocked, as well as the entrance which exists facing the yard. The reason for the first of these openings is unclear; possibly the southern one was blocked before the building was completed in a change of mind. Given that this section of the building is roofed separately and on a different axis from the main barn it may have been the intention originally to run this range further down the south side of the yard. The ground floor compartment originally had doors to enclose it and it possibly functioned as a trap house, but I am not certain of this.
This is an imposing and elegant farm building.

Ordnance Survey, 2011, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV346129.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments: none recorded

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events: none recorded

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