754

 

II  

Designated  

19/07/1966  

22/10/2002  

Two Parallel Barns with Linking Sheds at Plas Ashpool  

 

Denbighshire  

Llandyrnog  

 

Plas Ashpool  

310607  

367800  

 

To west of Plas Ashpool, the barns lying at right angles to the road.  

Agriculture and Subsistence  

 

Two barns, one mediaeval and the other sub-mediaeval, with a C19 set of linking sheds. The older barn is to the south, and was originally externally timber-framed; it retains 4 fine and very substantial pairs of crucks, perhaps C15; it was cased in brickwork probably in the late C17 (having stone quoins similar to the house). It is complete but now ruinous. The barn to the north is a substantial building probably of the C17, originally freestanding but since the late C19 connected by low sheds to the earlier barn. This also may originally have been timber-framed but later cased in brickwork.  

The barns stand with their gable ends to the road. Both barns are now externally of brickwork on a stone plinth. The linking sheds have a rear wall of stonework similar to the farmyard wall but on a brick plinth, but are of brickwork at front. All these structures are roofed in slate but the barns have coped gables to the road side. The barn gables to the rear do not survive. In the brickwork of the cruck barn there are 2 tiers of side ventilation slits. The gable wall to the road is concealed beneath growth of ivy. The gable wall to the farmyard is ruinous but what remains is of brickwork, with ventilation slits and stone quoins. The north barn has ventilation slits in the road-facing gable and a walled-up hatch. Hatches and doors in the side walls.  

The cruck barn is of 5 bays with full crucks of massive size, lapped tie beams and pegged collar beams. The crucks are classified as Alcock's type B, spaced at about 4.5m. At 567 cubic metres, this is an exceptionally large barn, about double the norm. The other barn is of 4 bays to the south-west of a brickwork crosswall and 2 bays to the north-east. The north-east part is disroofed and ruinous. This barn has a loft floor supported on rolled steel joist's. The trusses have collar beams and strutted tie beams linked by short king posts.  

A particularly fine cruck barn and a second timber framed barn, improved in the context of a gentrified farm of the period c1700