Owletts Barn, Cobham

OWLETTSBARN,COBHAM P.J. TESTER, F.S.A. The aisled timber barn forming the subject of these notes stands a short distance west of the well known late-seventeenth-century house, 'Owletts', in the village of Cobham (N.G.R. TQ 665687). Formerly, it belonged to successive owners of the house who farmed an extensive area of land adjoining, particularly several generations of the Hayes family, one member of whom, Bonham Hayes, built the house in 1684. 1 Unfortunately, the barn is now disused and has fallen into a very dilapidated condition, although I am informed that there are proposals to convert it for residential purposes. The walls are weather-boarded and the roof was until recently thatched. An inspection of the interior shows that the barn is not of one build; the five northern bays are of different character from those to the south and their narrow adjoining outshot. Jowled heads occur on the posts of the five northern bays, but not elsewhere. Moreover, under the tie-beam of the fifth truss from the north end there are empty mortices where the studs of the south end wall were once situated. It is convenient to describe the two phases of construction under separate headings: Phase I The barn consisted originally of five bays with aisles, and wide opposite entrances in the sides of the central bay to form a crosspassage and threshing place. The timbers appear to have been sawn and are smoothly finished, while carpenter's assembly marks in the form of Roman numerals can be clearly observed. Each of the arcade posts rises from the end of a plate crossing the aisle and resting on 1 The association of the Hayes family with Owletts is described in Ralph Arnold's A Yeoman of Kent (1949). 33 OUTSHOT -A- -8- OUTStWT CANOPY OVER 1e. •• .......2 __ __ 1_22,0FT 6 . ' ' 5 •􀀆•-􀀇i'oM P.J. TESTER Fig. 1. Owletts Barn, Cobham. Plan and typical Cross Sections. PJT courses of brickwork. Similar brickwork underlies the cills of the side walls. Aisle-ties link the arcade posts with the outer walls and there are diagonal struts, or shores, below the aisle-ties from the backs of the posts to the post-plates across the aisles. At the head of each main post, and also the shorter posts on the line of the outer walls, there is a pronounced jowl supporting the tie-beam and arcade plate in the former instance and the wall-plate and aisle-tie in the latter. Above the tie-beams the two inner trusses are of a familiar 34 A . , ' ' ·,􀀆􀀇:>, ----=-- SM OWLETIS BARN, COBHAM post-medieval type, with clasped side-purlins resting on the ends of collars which in turn are supported by slender queen-posts. At a relatively late period, two of the trusses - those first and fourth from the north end - were modified by removing the central part of the tie-beam and introducing long 'sling braces' rising from low on the main posts to a point under the rafters just below their junction with the collars. This work is clearly not part of the original framing as large ferrous metal bolts and nuts were used to join the timbers, as distinct from pegged mortice-and-tenon carpentry used elsewhere. Probably this modification was to increase accommodation, as it was usual to stack the harvested crops up to the full height of the roof. 2 A hipped canopy covers the east entrance and both here and in the opposite opening the side posts are enlarged at the base with vertical grooves to accommodate temporary low-level shutters, or 'lifts', to retain the harvested crop during threshing and prevent the entry of livestock from the farmyard when the main doors were open. The lean-to outshot at the north end does not appear to be an integral part of the main building from which it is separated by an uninterrupted partition. Phase II The three southern bays are of inferior workmanship. Rough timbers were used and the posts are not thickened at their heads. Wide doorways occur on both sides of the third bay from the south. Some of the posts consist of lengths of timber spliced together and there is evidence that much of the material was re-used from an earlier structure. The roof is of collar-and-side-purlin form and the south end is hipped and brought down to cover the outshot. This was entered from its east end and was originally separated from the main body of the barn. Subsequently, the centre of the partition was removed below tie-beam level except for a central post, evidence of the modification being the obvious sawn-off ends of the cill on each side of the opening. There are aisle-ties but the main posts are not shored, although they are braced upwards to the tie-beams and arcade-plates. 2 R. Harris, Discovering Timber Framed BuUdings (1979), 58. Our Member, Mr K.W.E. Gravett, M.Sc., F.S.A., has offered the suggestion that there may have been 'a progressive farmer about 1850 who put in elevators, and that explains the change in truss! (Personal communication, 21st October, 1986) 35 P.J. TESTER Dating There is no known evidence from documentary sources to indicate when the barn was built. In general, the carpentry of the earlier part suggests a relatively late period - certainly post-medieval. The form of the jowls is that which in east Kent goes with barns judged to be of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.3 Scarf-joints in the upper plates include face-halved and bladed forms in use from late medieval to modern times. An estate map of 175 8 does not appear to show the barn although other buildings in the vicinity are clearly represented. 4 Andrews, Dury and Herbert's large-scale map of 1769 does, however, show a building in this position and from its proportions it might well indicate the Phase I barn. On this evidence - so far as it. goes- a date in the 1760s is tentatively suggested and is not incompatible with the structural character. Such evidence as exists does not indicate that the two phases of construction were separated by a very long interval, despite their disparity in quality of workmanship. In Arnold's book (op. cit.) mention is made of Bonham Hayes jnr., nephew of Richard Hayes (1682-1754). In 1739, uncle Richard paid £32.s. 1 ls. towards setting Bonham apprentice to a carpenter in London. Twenty-seven years later, Bonham came to live with his brother, Richard, (1725-90) at Owletts. In 1771, Bonham built the Meadow House still standing in the village but, in 1790, he removed to Deal and died five years later. The term 'carpenter' in the eighteenth century covered more than it does today, and Bonham's early training may have left him with 'an urge to build' (Arnold) which certainly expressed itself in his creation of the Meadow House. This being so, one may perhaps conjecture as to whether he had a hand in building the earlier part of the barn which stands today in the area of what was then his brother's farmyard. 3 F.E. Brown, 'Aisled Timber Barns in East Kent', p. 23, in Traditional Kent Buildings, No. 1. Edited by Jane Wade and published by the Kent County Council Education Committee (1984). 4 This is based on a photograph of the map reproduced in Arnold's A Yeoman of Kent and is slightly blurred in places. The original cannot, unfortunately, now be traced. 36 OWLEITS BARN, COBHAM PLATE I East Side of Owletts Barn, showing hipped Canopy over the main Entrance. PLATE II (Photo.: P.J. T.) Interior, looking North. 37 P.J. Tester) PJ. TESTER Interior. looking S outh View of rh e R oof Structure in h (Photo.: P.J. T.) t e southern Area. 38