2076

 

II  

Designated  

19/11/1953  

27/10/2000  

Barn at Upper Trerew  

 

Monmouthshire  

Skenfrith  

Abergavenny  

Llanvetherine  

338134  

217790  

 

Approximately 2km E of Llanvetherine, opposite the farmhouse on gently sloping ground at the end of a short farm track that runs E off the minor road from White Castle to the B4521.  

Agriculture and Subsistence  

 

This great medieval timber-framed barn, dating from c1550, was first recorded by Sir Cyril Fox in 1949. One part of a huge medieval cruck truss survives, although the blades have been sawn through above the collar. A small stone building was added to the upper end of this cruck barn c1600. This building has a monumental oak doorway which Fox and Raglan conclude was to an ox-house. Fox and Raglan seem to identify ox-houses on the basis of their wide entrance doorways. As Eurwyn Wiliam has pointed out, identifying ox-houses is a problem fraught with difficulties. The door-widths of the ox-houses Fox and Raglan identify in Monmouthshire are not much wider than cowhouses or shippons. The doorway at Upper Trerew is not especially large, and Wiliam concludes that it is equally possible that the building at Upper Trerew was a stable.  

Large medieval barn, approximately 23m in length. Gables and lower part of the long walls are rubble stone, some brick dressings. Upper part of each long wall is timber framed: to S timber panels are mostly exposed but some are weatherboarded, to N timber framing is clad in corrugated metal. Corrugated metal roof. N elevation (far left) has massive oak doorway with depressed four-centred arch to former ox-house. Broad entry to threshing floor (centre) with flat canopy and boarded double doors. Long wall (to right) has single storey lean-to with slate roof, which obscures a 6-light diamond mullion window which formerly lit lower cowhouse. Rendered N wall of lean-to has boarded half-doors at each end and a horizontal 2-pane window in centre. At lower end is W gable with vent slit in gable-head. Ground floor cowhouse has centre square 2-light mullion window with cambered brick arch and internal shutters, flanked each side by similarly arched doorways with boarded doors. Opposing E gable has a square pitching loft doorway.  

Corn barn of 7 bays. C20 tie beam roof trusses; flanking threshing floor; trusses have raking queen struts; two tiers of purlins. At upper end the lower part of a large medieval cruck-framed gable truss survives; the blades of the crucks have been sawn off above the tie-beam, but two tiers of panels survive below the tie. To E of the threshing floor the stone side walls rise to a height of about 1m and have two tiers of large square timber-framed panels. On S side, the framed walls have angle-braces from sill to wall plate. To W of the threshing floor the stone side walls are higher, rising to a height of about 2m and have a single row of panels. Stone-flagged threshing floor is flanked on W side by transverse oak partition with central doorway to lower lofted cowhouse. At upper end, the former ‘ox-house' is lofted: two transverse ceiling beams are chamfered with straight cut stops.  

Substantial late C15 timber-framed barn, with important remains of C15 cruck truss and unusual monumental doorway to beast house at upper end.