Barn at Winters Farm, Rettendon (EHER 49959)

A timber-framed barn with a fine collar purlin crown-post roof thought to date to the late 15th or early 16th century.

The farmstead known as Winters Farm on Buckhatch Lane in Rettendon is believed to date to the late C15 or early C16, with C19 and C20 additions and alterations. The farmhouse was remodelled in the early C21, at which time it and the adjacent barn were found to be of timber-framed construction of a form which suggested a late C15 or early C16 date for the buildings. The farmstead is shown on a map of 1777, on Buckhatch Lane, which then formed the south-eastern boundary of Rettendon Common. The farmhouse had already been largely rebuilt c.1831 when much of its external walling was replaced in red brick, but the barn, although enveloped in later accretions, remained largely as originally constructed, together with its wagon porch, thought to have been added in the C17 or early C18. Lean-to structures have subsequently been added along the rear (north-west) wall of the barn, at its north-eastern and south-western end, and against the left-hand end bay of the south-east elevation. These are believed to have obscured rather than replaced early fabric.