Building record WSF 058 - The Limes, Wattisfield

The 'barn' at The Limes is a timber-framed and rendered outbuilding of the late-15th or 16th century which lies in close proximity to the service gable of an ostensibly contemporary domestic house and almost certainly represents a rare and historically important detached kitchen. The house is parallel with the main street in the centre of the medieval settlement, just 25 m south of St Margaret's church, but the outbuilding is aligned at right-angles. Its original structure contained three unequal bays and extended to 10.5 m in length by 5 m in overall width (34.5 ft by 16.25 ft), and its external walls rose to 3.5 m at the roof-plates (11.5 ft). Precise analysis is hampered by the concealment of key evidence behind 20th century render, but the building appears to have contained a two-bay open hall to the rear (east) with a cross-passage adjoining an undivided service bay to the west. The loft of the service bay extended over the central bay to create a 'boot-shaped' hall heated by an open hearth - as indicated by heavy sooting to the timbers of the eastern bay. Any evidence of the hall window is hidden, but it did not rise to the roof-plates in the usual manner (S1).