Post-medieval barn at Glebe House, Rectory Road, Stisted (EHER 80259)

The building recorded at Glebe House comprises a small timber-framed barn and adjacent store, which, when constructed, was associated with the parish rectory.

March 2024. Level 2 building survey. The building recorded at Glebe House comprises a small timber-framed barn and adjacent store, which, when constructed, was associated with the parish rectory. Whilst buildings are depicted on the site on the 1777 Chapman and André map, the lack of detail make it impossible to firmly assign the barn and store to any of these buildings. The first concrete cartographic evidence of the building is on the 1840 tithe map. The accompanying apportionment records the owner and occupier of the land to be a Revered Charles Forster, the same reverend partially responsible for major restoration works at the parish church in the 1840s. The wall-framing of the barn (and likely the store, although obscured at the time of recording) uses through-bracing, a carpentry technique not common until after the end of the 16th century. Two Baltic timber marks were observed: one in the barn and the other in the store. The importing of timber into Britain began in the 17th century but increased dramatically during the 19th century. The use of English bond for the plinth of the building can be helpful in offering a construction date. English bond is the generally accepted as the earliest regular form of brick bonding and was popular throughout the 17th century, after which Flemish bond brickwork overtook as the most widely used. The barn is relatively small in size, only two-bays wide, and unlike a typical threshing barn, which tend to exhibit large opposing double-doors, it has only had a single-width doorway on one elevation. This points to a barn that was used for the storage of crop as opposed to processing. The original function of the store was likely either a small animal shed or tool store. Although in its present form the store has a double doorway, this is an expansion on original smaller doorway. The widening of the doorway was probably to accommodate a cart and use the store as a cart-lodge. <1>