A stone-built range of late-medieval origin adapted and extended in later C18th as a barn. The hall and cross-passage survive from the medieval range but the upper and lower end bays have been lost. The early timberwork has been swept away but the pointed doorways of the cross-passage are undoubtedly (late) medieval domestic work. A large lateral hall fireplace survives with a most impressive stone lintel. The stonework is much disturbed by C18th reworking and it is not clear if (as seems likely) the lateral fireplace is a modification. The surviving wall-beams of the ceiling are certainly post-medieval and relate to an odd cross-wall with first-floor fireplace that has been introduced at the passage end of the hall. The chronology is probably: (1) ca. 1450 stone-built hall range; (2) ca. 1600 hall ceiling and (if not earlier) lateral fireplace; (3) ca. 1760 adaptation as a barn with the building of a new farmhouse and granary (the latter dated 1763). Features from the last phase include the cruck-like interrupted tie-beam truss over the hall. Plans as exisiting in ER/MM/2002/84. RCAHMW photographic survey of farmstead (NPRN 305361) by Iain Wright. 'A Historical Report on Great Manson Barn' (Dec. 2003) by The House Historians has been donated to RCAHMW. (Richard Suggett/RCAHMW/RFS)