A vast 14th-century barn built for Shaftesbury Abbey's farm at Barton, 51 metres long under a timber cruck roof
Open to visitorsan English Heritage site — check opening times and admission before you go
Shaftesbury Abbey, a wealthy Dorset nunnery, built this barn in the 1330s to store tithes, the one-tenth share of a harvest owed to the church, from its farm at Barton on the edge of Bradford-on-Avon. At 51 metres long, it ranks among the biggest medieval barns left standing in England. Inside, the stone-tiled roof is held up by rows of massive timber crucks, pairs of curved oak beams meeting at the top like an upside-down boat. After Henry VIII closed the monasteries in 1539, taking Shaftesbury Abbey with them, the barn stayed in working use on the farm for centuries, until preservation groups and then the state stepped in to save it. You can walk to it from Bradford-on-Avon’s town centre past the Kennet & Avon Canal, and step inside to see the roof from below.
