Poplar Farm, Adwick upon Dearne, South Yorkshire - Level 2/3 Historic Building Recording

CFA Archaeology Ltd was commissioned by John Story to create an historic building record of an early stone-built 19th century barn and outbuilding both of which lay within the curtilage of a Grade II listed farmhouse on the outskirts of Adwick upon Dearne near to Mexborough in South Yorkshire. The survey was required prior to their conversion into 3 dwellings. The recording found the survival of an early stable in the outbuilding on site, and architectural details which symbolised a change in the quality of agricultural buildings in the latter part of the 18th and early part of the 19th century, at a time when farm buildings, belonging to larger estates, were being built to a higher standard to attract a new breed of tenant farmers that could increase yields by employing modern farming methods. The presence of arrow slit breathers (Photograph 41) in all four elevations of the barn identifies that the primary function of the building was to store crops and the domestic accommodation now present at the north west end being a later intervention. The floor surface between the two large cart entrances at the south east end of the barn still retains stone flags and although by the mid-19th century mechanical threshing had taken the place of hand threshing, the presence stone flags and the opposing doors are indicative of an early threshing floor. Similarly there are also two smaller blocked doorways at the north west end of the barn, one of which on the north east elevation has been made into a window (Photograph 42), while in the south west elevation a smaller doorway has been inserted into the once larger opening (Photograph 4). It is possible that this end of the barn prior to its conversion into domestic accommodation could have been used for threshing with smaller winnowing doors used to control the draft through the building. The first floor opening at the north west end of the south west elevation (Photograph 6) shows a large amount of ware on the stone sill indicating that this opening more than any other of the first floor openings would have been extensively used for pitching hay into the building from stacked carts. The map regression shows that other buildings were present on site during the early part of the 19th century. At the north west end of the barn, there is an attached building depicted on the historic maps up to1930s (Fig.2d). According to the current occupant of the farmhouse, this was still extant well into the latter part of the 20th century. The presence of a doorway (Photograph 43) and window in the now boundary wall to the north west end of the barn, and scarring in the north west gable shows that this was of a single-storey construction with a connecting door into the domestic end of the barn which is now blocked (Photograph 44). Internally, the north east wall of the barn between the two doorways (Fig.4c) contains equally spaced mortise holes on two levels for floor joists (Photograph 16). The higher of the two levels of mortise holes have render on the wall below and probably represents a former enclosed space. No line of mortise holes are present in the opposing south west wall of the barn so it is assumed that there would have been posts supporting wooden floor levels within this part of the barn and the space below used to house animals with a hay loft above. The brick partition wall at the north west end of the barn shows that the domestic end was a later addition to the barn and was probably inserted in the early part of the 20th century (Photograph 14). Although no internal access was possible to identify datable features such as fireplace, a similar intervention of late 19th to early 20th century cottages into an early barn were found sixteen miles to the west of site at in Oxspring near Barnsley.

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