Tithe barn, Lacock

The tithe barn stands on East Street in Lacock, a long stone building under a tall roof of stone slates. It was built in the fourteenth century for the nuns of Lacock Abbey to store the produce of their estates, and it is listed Grade I. The National Trust owns it.

History

The barn belonged to Lacock Abbey, the house of Augustinian nuns that Ela, Countess of Salisbury, founded in 1232. Historic England's listing dates the barn to the fourteenth century and thinks it was most likely built as part of the abbey's precinct wall, which explains why it sits on the edge of the village street rather than in a farmyard.

Rents in kind

A barn like this held what the abbey's tenants paid in produce rather than coin. The Lacock walk leaflet from CPRE Wiltshire says the rents stored here were mostly grain and fleeces. The name tithe barn is the usual one for such buildings, though the listing describes its use simply as storing farm produce.

After the abbey

When the abbey was surrendered in 1539, the barn stayed in farm use. For part of the eighteenth century, the listing says, it is understood to have served as a market hall, before going back to agriculture in the nineteenth century, when corn was threshed there. It came to the National Trust in the mid-twentieth century with the rest of the abbey estate, which Matilda Talbot gave to the Trust in 1944 with the village properties she owned.

What to see

From the street, the west wall is almost plain rubble limestone, broken near the middle by large timber doors in a square opening. The south gable is set at an angle, with a blocked arched opening on the ground floor, three rectangular vents above a drip course and a moulded stone at the apex. A wing projects to the east with its own big doors.

Inside, the listing describes eight bays divided by raised cruck trusses, the great curved timbers resting on dressed stone blocks rather than going down to the ground, with arch-braced collars, two purlins on each side of the roof and windbraces. The floor is beaten earth. Look closely at the timbers if you get inside: some carry carpenters' assembly marks, and some have apotropaic symbols, marks cut to ward off harm.

At the north end, joined to the barn by a wall with a studded door, is the lock-up, the village's late eighteenth-century cell for drunks and offenders.

Visiting

The barn is free to see from East Street at any time. We could not confirm regular opening of the inside, so check the National Trust's Lacock page before you plan on it. The village streets are level. The National Trust lists toilets by its Stables Café and an accessible toilet (RADAR key) in the village.

Getting there

The barn is on East Street in Lacock. By car, park in the National Trust car park on Hither Way (SN15 2LG), south of the village, which costs £5 a day for non-members, is free to members and has Blue Badge bays; the barn is a short walk up the High Street. Chippenham, about 4 miles away by road, has the nearest railway station.

Nearby

St Cyriac's Church is a minute's walk east along Church Street, with the packhorse bridge below it. The Red Lion is a few doors along the High Street and The George Inn is on West Street. The abbey that built the barn, with the Fox Talbot Museum, is at the bottom of the High Street, and our Lacock guide covers the rest of the village.