Every time the end of October comes round I realise that several attractions are about to close until next Spring, so if I want to visit I need to go now. This is great for me but bad for you as I end up blogging about somewhere you can no longer go. I've done this before with Camber Castle, the Chiltern Open Air Museum and 575 Wandsworth Road, so apologies but I'm doing it again. Harmondsworth Great Barn only opens on the second and fourth Sundays of the month from April to October, so I went yesterday but you won't be able to visit until 2027, sorry. Stick April 11th in your calendar now.
ENGLISH HERITAGE: Harmondsworth Great Barn
Location: Manor Court, Harmondsworth UB7 0AQ [map]
Open: 11am-4pm (2nd & 4th Sundays) (April-October)
Admission: free (donation welcomed)
Website: english-heritage.org.uk/visit/places/harmondsworth-barn
Four word summary: The cathedral of Middlesex
Time to allow: up to an hour
What's extraordinary about Harmondsworth Great Barn isn't just how big it is - the largest timber-framed building in England - but also that it's still here. When the barn was built in 1426 these were open fields in the Colne Valley but it now finds itself half a mile from the M25, quarter of a mile from the M4 and, if Heathrow's expansion ever gets the go-ahead, 150 yards from the new Third Runway. It was built at the behest of the Bishop of Winchester to store sheaves of wheat and barley from local farms before threshing, ultimately to help fund Winchester College. And it's massive, a full 58 metres long with an exhilarating interior that once led Sir John Betjeman to describe it as the cathedral of Middlesex.
We know it was planned in 1425 because documents confirm two men called John att Oke and William Kyppyng travelled to Kingston to inspect trees before replacing the previous barn on the site. We know the oaks were cut down in spring 1426 because when they dated the timbers, that was that outer ring of growth. We know the work was complete by September 1427 because the tilers were paid a bonus for completing the roof so quickly. And we know it's 600 years old because a slew of events have been arranged to celebrate the sexcentenary including an architectural conference, a Birds of Prey Day and a visit by Gardeners' Question Time.
You'll find the Great Barn in the centre of the village of Harmondsworth, up a short dead end where the Manor used to be. Hop off the bus at the top of the High Street and aim for the village green, all part of the conservation area that's due to be ultra-marginally retained should the Airport's expansion plans prove successful. Keep both pubs to the left, perhaps wondering how they'd both stay in business should bulldozers eliminate their clientele. Admire St Mary's church, parts of which are very early Norman and whose front railings are currently festooned with 40 plastic poppies, twice as many as bedeck the green. And if you've come on the right day the gate at the end of the drive will be unlocked and you can come in.
The barn complex is a bit weird because when the old farm and its outbuildings were sold off in 1978 (sale price £67,000) the purchaser decided to create a mini trading estate on the site. Businesses formerly trading here include Ballast PLC and a herbal importer, their buildings boarded up and partially scaffolded, while a luxury car hire company continues to park up their sleek black Heathrow-bound minibuses opposite. And there beyond the car park is a very very long tiled barn, sleek but in a different way, hopefully with all three of its barn doors wide open. If so then volunteers will be waiting to welcome you at a trestle table, dishing out a brief information sheet (and also maybe a Quality Street if you're young enough).
"People normally say wow at this point," said the volunteer in charge of welcoming me, and she wasn't wrong. The barn is twelve bays long, 11½m wide and also 11½m high. It only becomes more incredible when you realise all the beams and timbers have been here since the days of Henry VI, all supported by foot-thick aisle posts standing on squared blocks of Reigate stone. We know from the original paperwork that the carpenters used 250 spykenalls, 350 fyfestrokenaylls and six woodcobbleeze to secure the main structure, also from modern counting that they needed 2800 nails to attach the outer boards and 40,000 tacks to fix the tiles. Each truss was numbered before being raised into position and you can still see four scratches on the fourth one along, or you can should a volunteer point it out which they probably will because they clearly love this place.
The Friends of Harmondsworth Barn were formed in 2005 after local MP John McDonnell convened a meeting to try to help save the building. English Heritage eventually took on both ownership and upkeep but the Friends do the day to day work, turning up to open the doors, organising the events and curating the interior. They have 24 bays to fill and each gets its own theme, so one has old maps, one has archaic agricultural tools and one's devoted to owls (because they have one in the roof called Ollie). Elsewhere you can listen in on eyewitness conversations, admire old tools, watch a short video, buy souvenir 600th birthday mugs or learn the name of today's horse, depending. One corner has a kettle, but I think that's just for the volunteers rather than general refreshments. Also fire extinguishers are prevalent, as might be expected, indeed the southern end of the barn burned partially in 1972 so the tiles and oak panels here are not the originals.
Last time I visited in 2014 the barn was packed full of scaffolding as part of English Heritage's full-on £½m restoration project. It looks so much better now, a testament both to them and to the medieval carpenters who built this place to last. It is an extraordinary survivor, and perhaps underappreciated by the wider population, hemmed in as it is in a dead end village on the edge of Hillingdon. Not all the amazing buildings in London are in the middle, some are right on the periphery... and opening up again after Easter, sorry.
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