Gawthorpe Great Barn, Padiham, Lancashire. Historic Building Survey Report

Gawthorpe Great Barn is a large aisled barn, of c1605 date, which has a nine bay plan, with aisle posts on padstones that are c2.5m high in places. The principal (south facing) facade was re-skinned, probably in circa 1850/ 60, and the rest of the barn has been subject to some alteration, but the timberwork of the aisled barn appears to be substantially original. The listed building description indicates that it is one of the finest aisled barns in the North West and that the ox stalls might be the earliest
examples in Britain.
The building survey revealed that the barn was of four main phases of construction, the first being a rectangular seventeenth-century ‘Great Barn’ providing for the estate’s produce as well as a home for animals. It was a largely symmetrical structure with an impressive aisled construction similar to other great barns in the region such as those at Wycoller in Lancashire, and East Riddlesden and Shibden in Yorkshire.
There was a central stone threshing floor served by two large cart entrances with substantial wain doors. There were probably two oxen houses, of which one still
survives. The frame of the barn exhibits both assembly marks on the members and masons or bankers marks on the stone plinths.