Description

BARLEY CHURCH END TL 4038 (North side) Barley

8/72 The Town House 9.6.52

GV II*

Formerly the Guildhall or Church House, used as a marriage feast room, free school, almshouses and for other public purposes; now a village hall. Early C16, altered c.1853 and c.1910. Built by the Gild of St. Catherine. Timber frame on brick base. Plastered. Steeply pitched tiled roof. 4 bays, that to left larger. 2 storeys. Continuous jetty to front with curved brackets to main bearers. Ground floor: 3 mid C19 entrances with plank and muntin doors, 4 centred arched heads, architraves, 4 two light lattice casements. First floor: 2 mid C19 8 light mullion and transom hipped half dormers, two 3 light casements. At each end of this elevation are enclosed external staircases, mid C19 to right, early C20 to left, with roofs swept down from main slope, 4 centred arched entrances with gabled heads. Inner returns have subsidiary doors beneath stairs, upper quatrefoil lights on all return faces. Left gable end massive original stack, exposed red brick with multiple coped offsets, originally external, built out to front in early C20 with ground floor flint and brick cladding. To rear a short lean-to, exposed plate and purlin. A similar stack at right end has been incorporated into Kirk Cottage (q.v.), exposed plate and purlin to front. To rear lattice casements and a late C19 2 storey gabled wing with an open ground floor, extruded red brick stack, 2 storey flat roofed addition. Interior: ground floor exposed framing of large scantling, close studding, jowled posts. Through passage to left of centre. Trimmer joist for original stairs. Original shutter grooves and mullion seatings. Axial and cross "axial chamfered bearers with carved foliate stops. Run out stop chamfered bearer in left bay. Upper chamber: jowled posts, some arched braces to chamfered cambered tie beams, collars to halved principals clasping purlins. Curved windbraces, ogee to front slope only. Continuous public use confirmed in inquests of 1609 and 1638.(RCHM 1910: VCH 1914: J. Wilkerson, Two Ears of Barley, 1969: S.E. Rigold, The Town House, Barley: Hertfordshire Archaeology, vol.3, 1973, p.94: Pevsner 1977: J. Wilkerson, Barley: An English Village,1979: RCHM Typescript).

Listing NGR: TL4013438441

External Links

• Wikidata Q17555267

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