Source/Archive record SEM341407 - The Great Barns at Cornham and Honeymead Farms, Exmoor Parish: Exmoor National Park Authority: Historic Building Assessment

Rapid historic building assessments at Cornham and Honeymead Farms on their unusual Great Barns, which are much altered but potentially significant and unique to the 19th century Knight family holdings. A feature of both farms is a Great Barn, long two-storey buildings flanked (or formerly so) by single-storey open-sided aisles. The measured survey of these two barns indicates they are almost identical and were built to a common design. The original purpose of these buildings remains to be determined but the storage and perhaps drying of fodder crops would appear most likely. The open-sided aisles would have been cattle sheds, and the compact, nuclear form of the structure saved money on its construction and reduced the carriage distance between store and animal. However, those economies were at the expense of efficiency, as due to the aisles all goods had to be carried into the building via the gable doors, and in both instances there was a separate water-powered threshing barn. Both structures were subsequently much altered to suit changing need, and this presumably indicates that either these buildings did not function as intended, or else the original function was sufficiently different to later use (under Frederic Knight) to require those changes. Cornham barn still forms part of the working farm, albeit very much reduced and with the loss of both aisles. Honeymead barn is in better overall condition and has been turned to alternative uses.