The History of Long Acre Barn
Long Acre Barn has been lovingly restored and turned into a unique, private hire venue for weddings and events
History of a Cumbrian wedding barn
Two years before Long Acre Barn was completed, it was still in agricultural use. We used it to house the lambing ewes in the spring – a maternity wing if you like! But Long Acre Barn’s history goes way back to a long time ago.
1859 was a monumental year in the history of our farm. It is the year the barn and granary were built, and you can see this from the outside because the date is carved into the sandstone archway. If we were unsure that was the real date, then there was no doubt when we ripped up the old floorboards in the granary and saw the date 1859 painted on the floor joists.
We are curious about other monumental happenings from 1859:
Elizabeth Blackwell becomes the first woman to have her name entered on the General Medical Council’s Medical Register … first woman doctor!
The National Portrait Gallery opens in London
The clock and chimes of the Clock Tower, Palace of Westminster become operational. The Great bell acquires the nickname “Big Ben” by association with Benjamin Hall, 1st Baron Llanover. Recent restoration of the clocks was done by a local business – The Cumbrian Clock Company at Dacre.
Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” a book which argues that species gradually evolve through natural selection, is published.
The granary is attached to the long barn, and was a storehouse for threshing grain or animal feed. The wheat or barley were stored upstairs to keep mice and other animals away from the food – and to protect the grain from floods.
As more modern farming methods came into play, the granary became a storage area and the main barn had various uses, but usually in spring it housed sheep and lambs.
With the ever changing fortunes of farming, we decided to explore ways to make the barn earn it’s keep, beyond being a maternity wing for our lambing season. With an orchard and meadow next to the house, diversification was an option to explore, and it meant we could sympathetically restore the buildings – using traditional methods wherever possible.
We wanted to keep as many authentic elements as we could – for instance, the grain shoot still remains with the opening filled with one of the three handmade, stained glass windows.
To restore the barn and granary to create a unique venue for weddings and celebrations for any occasion, we needed to strip it right back to basics.
The stonework in the granary was taken right back to bare stone, insulated and lime plaster was used to finish the walls. The granary had the floorboards lifted and replaced with new timber grown on the farm. It’s fantastic to be able to keep our carbon footprint so low, making the barn restoration as sustainable and environmentally friendly as possible. We’ve gone from tree planting to timber cutting, and crafting staircases.
Looking into this we discovered a post from @sonsofsawdust who discovered an excerpt from www.historichouseblog.com describing the purpose of carpenters marks and thought we'd share them with you.
"These markings are called ‘carpenters marks.’ Matched symbols at the joints of timber frame buildings, used during the construction process. Many people don’t realize that timber frame houses (and barns) were usually pre-cut and pre-fitted before they were actually erected.
Builders would scribe carpenter marks into the individual framing pieces (posts, beams, rafters, braces, joists, or whatever) when a timber frame was being prepared on the ground, so it could be properly reassembled when the house or barn was raised. Framers did this because each joint was custom-made since they had to carve each one individually. So — like snowflakes — no two joints were exactly alike, and if they mixed up the posts the joints might not fit together properly.
Carpenter’s marks were almost always Roman numerals, since the straight lines of Is, Vs, and Xs were far easier to carve than the curves of 2s, 3s, 5s, 6s, 8s, and 9s.
Roman numerals were usually chiselled into the wood to help match up joints or even scratched in with a saw. The marks were most common before 1830. The basic reason for their disappearance was that timber framers transitioned from “scribe rule” construction to “square rules” — meaning marriage marks for individual joints were unnecessary since joints were now cut in a more standardized, universal way."
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