MDE20420 - Barham (Building)

Barham. Built on the site of a medieval farmstead mentioned in the 1332 Lay Subsidy. [1] Barham was Beriham in 1330, and the name can safely be derived from "Burh-ham". (2) Barham is mentioned in the Lay Subsidy rolls of 1330 as "Beriham". [3] The site is shown on the Tithe Map for North Molton. At this stage, it included a house, a small outbuilding to its southwest and an L shaped building at c. SS 7467 3378, which may have been a field barn. A farmhouse is shown on the 1st and 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey maps for this area at SS 7469 3384 but it is not clear whether this is the same building shown on the Tithe Map or whether that had been altered or demolished and replaced. The possible field barn is depicted but had been reduced in size. By this time, a further building had been constructed at c. SS 7470 3388. This latter building has since been removed, but a small building at SS 7468 3378 may incorporate elements of the possible field barn. The farmhouse has also been reduced in size, leaving only the western end of the building still extant and now subservient to a much larger farmhouse built to the west after the Royal Air Force took aerial photographs of the site in 1946-8, because it was not extant at that stage. The main farm activities have since been moved to a new complex to the west. [4-8] The site was visited in January 1997, although the surveyor may only have viewed the newer farm complex to the west. It was described as 20th Century. [9]