ENN109605 - The Mill Barn, Islip, 2019 (Building recording)

A programme of historic building recording by photographic survey was undertaken at Mill Barn, Mill Lane, Islip, Northamptonshire. A farmstead on the site may have been in existence from at least 1835 when a group of structures was depicted on the First Series OS map. An extensive complex of farm buildings depicted on the OS County map of 1886 appears to have survived unchanged until at least 1958 when it was shown on a 6-inch OS map. The buildings included a structure corresponding to the surviving building which was recorded by the current survey. The building, constructed in ironstone and limestone and currently roofless, is now a single space but was originally divided into a larger area open to the roof and a smaller two-storey component at one end. The larger area may have functioned as a chaff house or straw barn, while the smaller area may have house a chaff cutting or other other type of processing area with a (hay?) loft above. The floor and rear wall of a cattle shelter abut the south side of the barn. The main space in the surviving structure appears to have been converted into a cattle shed at some point in the 20th century while second floor in the two-storey element appear to have been adapted to house an item of barn machinery driven from the outside. Inf from OASIS online form