Great Barn at Harmondsworth. Image: eogin21, Flickr - Creative Commons License
An extraordinary medieval barn once dubbed “the cathedral of Middlesex” by Sir John Betjeman has been bought by English Heritage in a move to save it from decay, it is announced on Monday.
Just beyond the sprawl of Heathrow, the Great Barn at Harmondsworth has stood between the roaring M25 and M4 motorways and the straggling warehouses and industrial estates around the airport perimeter since 1426.
It has long been famous among building historians and admired by the poet and conservation campaigner Betjeman. Repair work is now being carried out – including to its huge roof – and it will open to the public regularly for the first time this spring.
“This is the best preserved medieval barn in England, probably in Europe, and the ninth largest ever built in England. For its size, and its state of preservation, it is unique,” said Michael Dunn, an English Heritage historic buildings expert, of the 60 metres long, 12 metres wide and 11 metres high timber structure.
Justine Bayley, an archaeologist who lives in Harmondsworth village and secretary of the group that has acted as guardians for the barn, said: “If we had a pound for everyone who walks in here and says ‘wow!’ we could have re-roofed the building twice over. It’s really the only appropriate response.”
English Heritage took the rare step of buying the building after a Gibraltar-based company, which acquired it for £1 from the receivers for the previous owners, ignored demands to repair the barn, which should have the highest protection as a Grade I listed building and a scheduled ancient monument.
The barn went on the buildings at risk register and its plight was publicised in 2009 when Cornerstone, the journal of the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Buildings founded by William Morris, revealed that rain was pouring through gaping holes in the roof, with every gust of wind lifting more tiles.
There was probably a barn at the site before the Norman conquest, when King Harold owned the rich farmland, famous well into the 20th century for arable crops and orchards. In the late 14th century the estate was bought by the bishop of Winchester William of Wykeham; Winchester college records show carpenters in 1398 sent to repair a barn at Harmondsworth.
In 1426 the master carpenter William Kypping was sent to choose oak trees from the forest at Kingston and raise the mighty new barn.
Through civil war, plague, agricultural reforms and urban development, which changed the face of the countryside, it remained an agricultural barn for almost 700 years – a flying bomb that flattened a nearby modern barn just cost it a few roof tiles. In the early 1970s Roy Barwick, who still farms locally, gathered in the last harvest to the barn with his son. “It’s a wonderful thing, it was nice to work in it and think how many farmers were there before us,” said Barwick.
English Heritage stepped in to carry out emergency repairs, before deciding to buy the building. It only cost £20,000, but will cost many times that each year in maintenance.
Simon Thurley, chief executive of EH, said: “Harmondsworth Barn is one of the greatest medieval buildings in Britain, built by the same skilled carpenters who worked on our magnificent medieval cathedrals. Its rescue is at the heart of what English Heritage does.”
The friends of Harmondsworth Barn who will now run it, opening it free to the public two Sundays each month from April, include a local historian, teachers, and a number of airport workers..
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
Published via the Guardian News Feed plugin for WordPress.