Agricultural History Review, Volume 65 Part 2 (2017), p. 340

Harmondsworth is among the country’s great medieval barns – what hacks call the cathedrals of the countryside. At twelve bays and 192 feet in length, it is here reckoned the thirteenth largest British barn for which there is evidence, although many of those which trump it are long-since demolished. Built in 1425–27 by Winchester College to service a newly purchased manor, it remained in agricultural use until the 1980s. Disuse led to disrepair, and finally a rescue purchase by English Heritage for £20,000, followed by £573,000 for repairs, completed late in 2014. A secure long-term future remains some way away, however, threatened as the barn is by Heathrow’s third runway. Look out for this one in the years to come.

It is suggested by the authors that the construction of great barns may have followed the return to demesne farming in the twelfth century, after which grain tithes were received as unprocessed sheaves rather than as grain. Such barns have a rich literature – Walter Horn and Ernest Born are scholars’ names that immediately spring to mind – but all too often the focus has been almost exclusively on structure, with context and function secondary considerations, if treated at all. Not so here, and that is what makes this such an exemplary study. Two things facilitated it: the opening up of the building and the recording and structural analysis which informed repairs, and the survival of a rich series of medieval accounts.

The manor of Harmondsworth was bought by William of Wykeham in 1391 as an endowment for New College, Oxford. As on other endowment properties, heavy investment in its buildings followed: church, prior’s house and then the barn. That barn supplemented, or more probably replaced, two earlier barns, one being used in the 1390s for mixed crops, the other for hay. Accounts show that the barn or barns had to store cereals and pulses from around 240 acres, and there is an interesting discussion of the volume of crops barns could accommodate (dependent on how high into the roof the stacks rose) and the correlation between storage volume and the crops’ acreage. There is, however, wide variation in the outcomes of the calculations according to the sources used, and the underlying assumptions on which the modern estimates are based: some estimates suggest Harmondsworth had considerable excess capacity, but this is far from certain. Also uncertain is the final cost of the new barn, although there is an informed consideration of what is known, and comparators.

As revealed by the accounts, the main crop grown here in the early fifteenth century was wheat (the smaller and broken grains, curallum, separated by sieving, being used as animal feed), followed by barley, oats, pulses and a mixed fodder crop of oats and legumes called harascum. The use of the barns – and barns in general – for storing and processing crops, which at Harmondsworth were also ricked, is considered in some detail, as are the ultimate uses to which the processed crops were put, alongside accounting procedures and the responsibilities of the college and manorial officials. This is a particularly rich and nuanced chapter, and would serve as a very useful primer for students. From Harmondsworth itself there is nothing particularly out of the ordinary, although labour services were still important as late as 1450. Their continued imposition in the early fifteenth century did not go unchallenged, and it is noted that by then, Harmondsworth had a long history of disastrous labour relations. Formal commutation came in 1461. However, by the fifteenth century the harvest workers did at least enjoy a much ampler and richer diet than in earlier days: in 1433–34 the harvest climaxed with a feast or ‘reapgoose’ for the twelve famuli, and presumably others, for which three geese were accounted, probably served on a table furnished with a cloth and candles.

At some stage before 1540 demesne farming ceased and the entire manor and rectory was leased as a single property, passing in 1543 to the Crown by exchange and thence in 1547 into lay hands. By the seventeenth century, if not earlier, groups of bays in the barn were let with separate nearby properties: two bays with Court Lodge in 1687. There is, however, no evidence of partitions having been inserted in the barn, although these are known elsewhere. Later, probably in the mid-eighteenth to mid-nineteenth centuries, a series of multifoils or ‘daisywheels’ were inscribed by compass on several of the stylobates: the contention that these were apotropaic, to ward off witches, bad luck or fire, has recently gained credibility through the work of Timothy Easton.

The book is well produced and attractive, with high-quality colour illustrations. My only disappointment is that Historic England has chosen a slightly modest format, a softback the same size as this journal. A building this magisterial really deserved more generous bookmaking. But this is just a small cavil. It is very good study.