New House Farm small barn, SO36652 16395, NPRN404682

This early-C17th, stone-built, slate-roofed, 4-bay, raised-cruck barn is built down-the-slope, and situated at right-angles to the barn/cow-house range. The walls were formerly timber-framed on a high stone plinth. Surviving wall studs exist embedded in the stone wall behind the uphill cruck-couple. The upper end cruck’s tie-beam is lap-jointed and extends through the wall-studs (like a spur), which are tennoned into the wall-plate, where peg holes and mortises of the former framed walls survive. The spur is notch jointed to locate and lock the wall-stud. The wall stud is morticed and pegged to a low outer wall-plate. The cruck base is seated at the same height on an inner low wall-plate and has probably been cut back from a full cruck. This cruck-couple has a lap-jointed tie-beam with soffit mortises for studs and stave holes for wattle in-fill below the tie-beam. It has a mortised collar and apex, and is seated on a lower wall-plate than the others.  It is different to the two lower cruck-couples which are seated on a higher tie/ceiling-beam with morticed collar and a saddle (one has had its tie-beam cut away). However, they do have a lap-jointed spurs to former wall-framing in the same position and height. All the trusses have an extra lap tie-beam, which is pegged and spiked by an iron nail, possibly early C19th. The trusses have two pairs of side-purlins and a diagonal ridge-piece, which link the roof as one build.
The uphill cruck is probably re-used from the early-C16th house nearby, as it has mortices for a partition. The low end crucks have no evidence of framed partitions or smoke blackening and may therefore have existed simultaneously as a barn range that has been re-built and are probably cut-back full crucks of C16th origin. These low end crucks are similar to those in the stable, both resting on tie-/ceiling-beams, although the stable has spur timbers that are morticed rather than lapped.

The building is sited on an unusual wide plinth with the land dropping steeply where the bank has been cut back around its lower part.
This building’s roof is racking downhill and a modern wall built at the low end to prevent this has cracked badly and it may therefore require remedial action to prevent eventual collapse. 

Visited, 2/3 August 2006 Geoff Ward, 
For Buildings at Risk List, Mons.