NHER 40946 (Building record) - Rookery Farm, Church Street

House of about 1810, red brick, mixed pantiles and slate.
L-shaped plan, two storeys. Five bays to south with doors below blank windows in second and fourth. Eastern is principal door with broken pediment, western is kitchen door. Eastern elevation has full height ground floor windows. Timber eaves brackets. Extension at rear.
Attached is cart shed of four bays, granary over, curved timber lintels to brick arches.
Attached to this is a five stead barn dated 1810, red brick, pantiles, two pairs of doors to south, shallow buttresses. Curved wooden lintels to brick arches, date on keystones. Single slit to each bay. Dentilled eaves, hipped roof, catslide to north. In line butt purlins, tiebeams on knees, Stone threshing floor.
Details from (S1).
(S2) in file.
E. Rose (NLA), 23 November 2004.

Cartshed converted to housing with dormers inserted. Aerial photograph of about 1980 shows original state, and (S2) shows present appearance. The date of 1810 has been added to one dormer presumably copying that on the barn.
(S3) shows how dangerous it is to trust dates on buildings.
E. Rose (NLA), 22 February 2005.

(S4) in file discusses evidence that the 1810 building is a refacing and extension of an 18th century house.
E. Rose (NLA), 12 February 2007.


August 2012, site meeting
Four tie beams to a typical 18th-century hipped roof (the 1810 date may, however, indicate the date of the barn) on red brick walls with former double threshing threshing floors exited via two arches with segmental heads, curiously of different heights, opposite tall openings to wall plate. The roof has wedge-tenoned butt purlins into single mortises with diagonal pegging. Collars halved onto principal rafters. Queen struts and compression colllars. The tie beams are placed below the level of the wall plate and connected to it by inverted knee braces. This curious arrangement may be the result of grain having been stored in the attic storey where the the pressure on the side walls would be excessive. The side walls were necessary to contain the grain and the pressure was transferred to the ties by the knee braces. (Two ties are to be raised to wall plate level). Catslide lean-to to north side. Arched openings have long pieces of timber incorporated into the brickwork of the jambs: in order to incoporate lining or to hold protection baulks to safeguard walls from cart wheel hubs. Ventilation loops with serifs and central lozenges. Wall plates are re-used timbers from a timber-framed building and general quality of timber very irregular. (see photos).
S. Heywood (HES), 01 August 2012.