By the Rev. Cation W. H. Jones, F.S.A. 



317 



leaving on the right a field called Culver-Close, because there at one 

 time was the dove-cot or pigeon-house (from the Anglo-Saxon culfre 

 =dove, or pigeon), we come to what is called Barton Farm, the 

 homestead of the lady of the manor, or of the chief farmer, who 

 held it under her, and was called the Firmarius. Of the house 

 itself, as regards its ancient portions, hardly anything is left. A 

 small portion which seems parcel of a gateway, and a small apart- 

 ment annexed to it, is nearly all ; and the date of this would hardly 

 be earlier than the fifteenth century. But the glory of Barton 

 Farm is its magnificent Barn, which i^ like a long nave with double 

 transepts, being 1 170 feet in length, and 20 feet in breadth — indeed, 

 including the transepts no less than 60 feet broad. The object of 

 so large a building was to house the crops from the farm itself, and 

 also the tithes which in early days were paid in kind, as well as to 

 provide shelter during winter and inclement weather for the flocks 

 and herds. It is generally called an Early English Barn, and the 

 older and more pointed arches of the tran septal entrances, into 

 which the more recent and depressed ones have been inserted, can 

 still be distinctly seen. The construction of its massive roof is not 

 only skillful — it was built in a time when men grudged as it would 

 seem neither labour nor materials — but ingenious. The roof-timbers 

 are all so framed from the ground as to be as far as possible inde- 

 pendent of the walls, and so to minimise the lateral thrust which 

 their great weight would otherwise exert on the building, to the 

 great detriment of the walls. On the surface of the. stones in the 

 interior can still be traced the various " marks " of the masons who 

 were employed in the original construction of the building. By 

 making a collection of them — for each master-mason had his dis- 

 tinctive mark, which he was obliged to leave on the surface of each 

 stone which he had worked, instead of as now on the side that is 

 embedded in the wall — it would not be difficult to make a rough 

 calculation as to the number of masons employed in the building. 



The date of the barn may be put down at about c. 1300 — 1350. 

 It is strange that we know not at all who built it. Aubrey, when 

 he came to visit us, now two hundred years ago, thought that he saw 

 as one of the finials a " battle axe," the crest of the Hall family, 

 vol. xx. — no. lx. y 



