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Barton Farm, Bradford on Avon
Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
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Barton Farm, on the southern side of the town, beside the river Avon, was the grange farm of the Abbey of Shaftesbury’s estate of Bradford.
It was developed during the Middle Ages around a central square, with a huge barn, granary, smaller barns and a farmhouse. Together they form one of the most complete medieval farm complexes in the country.
It remained a working farm into the 1960s, so there have been many additions and alterations throughout the six centuries of its life.
George Ashmead’s map of 1837 (north is to the right) shows the buildings of Barton Farm and some of its fields, with useful reference numbers. Grouped around the yard 86 are the Tithe Barn (left), Granary (bottom), Farmhouse (right) and West Barn (top). The Pound (78) was a small enclosure for holding stray animals and gave the name to Pound Lane and Pound Close (now called Victory Field). Culver Close (88) still has that name, which derives from a former pigeonhouse (Old English culfre=pigeon or dove). Rick Field (85) was used for building haystacks, but has recently been partly planted out as an orchard (now called The Hens Orchard), whereas the real orchard was number 87, now mostly a play area and the Bowls Club’s green.
The eastern boundary of the complex (between fields 77 and 85) is enclosed by what seems to be a medieval wall. This crowns a low bank which has been excavated by members of Bradford on Avon Museum’s Research Group. Below ground are the foundations of a double wall which has been suggested to have been the defences of a royal Saxon settlement on the site, before the Abbey’s farm.
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After the Abbey was dissolved in 1543 Barton Farm descended with the Manor of Bradford and was generally let to a tenant farmer. The Tithe Barn was sold by the Lord of the Manor, Sir Charles Hobhouse, to the Wiltshire Archaeology & Natural History Society in 1915. It was handed over to the Ministry of Public Buildings & Works in 1939 after restoration and is now in the care of English Heritage. The other agricultural buildings around the yard now belong to Bradford on Avon Preservation Trust, except for the farmhouse, which is in private hands. Land next to the river was bought by Wiltshire County Council in 1971 to become the Country Park. Victory Field, named at the end of World War 1, next to Pound Lane, was already in public use as a sports field and now belongs to Bradford on Avon Town Council.
For more see Bradford on Avon Museum booklet The Buildings of Barton Farm by Pam & Ivor Slocombe
For a history of the farm see Barton Farm, the last thousand years by Margaret Dobson & Gareth Slater
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 The farmhouse of Barton Farm may have originally been used to house the Abbess of Shaftesbury’s Bailiff and his retinue on occasional visits. At that time, probably only the part that juts out over the old farm track leading to the bridge existed and may have served as a gatehouse into the complex. It contains a large medieval room with a fine open timber roof on the upper floor. This might have been used as audience hall of the Bailiff, where he received tenants or perhaps held the Manor and Hundred courts. The rest of the building, of which there remains a perpendicular-style late 15th century two-storey porch was built later. It was rebuilt, or at least highly modified, in the Georgian period and is now divided into two separate homes. |
 The largest building is the Great Barn, which is known, probably wrongly, as the Tithe Barn. It dates from about 1340 and is one of the largest and finest in the country. Externally it is all of cut ashlar stone, braced by stone buttresses. Two porches, called streys, project on both sides, larger on the north. The roof is covered with thousands of thin stone tiles.
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 The Granary, on the eastern side of the yard, was used to store grain, as its name implies. The building was an addition of a few decades later than the Tithe Barn. The sacks would have been stored on its upper floor, which was supported on stone pillars to prevent rats and mice from reaching the valuable crop. It may have originally been all built of timber with wattle-and-daub walling between the main wooden uprights. The roof is supported by four oak cruck trusses. |
 The West Barn is mostly a building that dates from 2003, but incorporates parts of what was probably the oldest building on the Barton Farm site. It roughly represents the cross wing of a barn that ran north-south and has been dated by tree-rings of a timber to the end of the 13th century or early 14th. It was greatly altered in 1769 (according to a datestone), but became derelict in the 20th century and then the remains burnt down. Redevelopment was carried out by Bradford’s Preservation Trust in a medieval style and materials and features an open oak roof. It was opened by the Prince of Wales and is used for exhibitions, weddings and other functions. |
 Barton Bridge is a 14th century bridge with four pointed gothic arches carrying a track across the river Avon. It would have been built to connect Barton Farm with the property to the north and perhaps with Bath and the Manor of Kelston to the west, which was administered by the Bailiff of Bradford. |
| This has in recent years erroneously been called a packhorse bridge, but it is wide enough for carts and at least twice as wide as needed for a packhorse! |
 In its later years Barton Farm was mostly concerned with dairying. The three-legged milking stool and the yoke were used by the tenant farmer, Ernie Chard, for milking cows and for delivering fresh milk locally. They are now in Bradford on Avon Museum. |
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