18th to 19th century barns at Lakehouse Farm, Hempstead (EHER 47608)

18th to 19th century range of farm buildings, comprising threshing barns and stables.

March 2011. Level 3 building survey. The carpentry, fabric and constructions details of the frames of both the North and East Barn indicate a build date in the middle of the 18th century when interrupted elm studwork frames clad with weather-board became popular. This was because of a cheaper supply of mill sawn weather-boards making this type of construction affordable. Prior to this the boards were riven. The South Stable has many elements of this type of construction but it is built largely of reused timbers from an oak and elm frame - possibly from the building shown on the Chapman and Andre map of 1777. The barns were built as threshing barns and later had asphalt dressing floors. The North and South Stables were certainly in place by 1842, but their design using reused oak and elm timbers is one common to around 1800 when demand for quickly erected cheap buildings was high and supply of quality timber was very low. This was due to the Napoleonic War of 1795-1812 which saw embargoes on grain imports encouraging farmers to produce more at home. Lakehouse Farm was already geared up for grain production with its two threshing barns and it appears that another may have been built over the road to the east where the Tithe Map shows a building with a similar footprint. Other buildings were built north of the stables and both barns appear to have outshots which is a common development. Both barns were rebuilt with new machine made Victorian king- strut trusses and the frame re-jigged to replace the full height doors of the earlier design in favour of a central pedestrian door and hatch above. It is likely that the midstreys were partly dismantled to achieve this as the midstrey mid-rails are fully pegged in rather than just inserted. This would also explain the large connection plates in the midstrey top-plates on the East Barn. In the earlier part of the 20th century both of the stables were reroofed with machined softwood side purlin roofs with machine made clay double roman roof tiles. The North Barn was reroofed with a corrugated asbestos roof and the lower parts brick nogged with Flettons. This type of work and materials were common in the 1920s to the 1940s. In the later part of the 20th century most of the remaining doors were replaced using some of the original wrought iron fittings. The South Stables had a large section of its west wall replaced. In 1995-6, the East Barn was completely rebuilt, adding a bay to the southern end and cladding the roof in corrugated metal sheathing. <1>