Six hundred years after it was built, England’s largest surviving medieval timber-framed barn could now be “shaken to pieces” by aircraft vibrations, campaigners warn. The public has until 1 September to submit objections to the Heathrow airport expansion, which could threaten the survival of the New Barn at Harmondsworth, considered a remarkable example of medieval architecture. The barn was built in 1426 and was bought in 2011 by English Heritage, which is staging a major conference in September.
Its significance lies in its extraordinary scale, as well as the near-complete survival of its medieval structural timbers. It is nearly 60 metres long, 12 metres wide and 11 metres tall, with 13 massive oak trusses holding up the roof. It was described as a “cathedral” by the former poet laureate Sir John Betjeman, who was struck by the size and atmosphere of this magnificent structure.
One of the conference speakers is Justine Bayley, English Heritage’s former archaeological scientist. She told the Guardian that the boundary of the extended airport is barely a few hundred metres from the barn, which “could be shaken to pieces by the vibrations from airplanes taking off”. The barn was built to store agricultural produce exactly 600 years ago this year.
The land had been bought in 1391 by the then bishop of Winchester. Bayley said: “It’s not plus or minus 10 years or half a century. How many late medieval buildings do we know when they were built?
Its structural timbers are more than 95% original. Most of the big medieval barns and other large timber-framed buildings have been repaired, and you’re lucky if 50% of the original timbers are there.” If the Heathrow expansion goes ahead with a third runway, she questions whether the barn is “still going to be here”. The government is consulting on amendments to the Heathrow expansion national policy statement, for which it is now seeking comments.
It is an ongoing process which includes Heathrow airport running its own consultation later this year. Bayley, who chairs the Stop Heathrow Expansion campaign, said: “The Department for Transport (DfT) has declared that Heathrow is a critical national infrastructure and therefore all the legislation to do with environmental limits and climate change and so on can be just ridden roughshod over because they’ve decided that it was more important that Heathrow’s expansion goes ahead. It’s all there in the detail that’s been consulted on.
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