page_title: Frindsbury
section_title: Medieval structure
hierarchical_section_title: Frindsbury / Buildings / The manor of Frindsbury / Medieval structure
caption_attribution_description: English: Unconverted Barn at Manor Farm, Frindsbury C13 aisled barn. Grade I listed https://historicengland.org.uk/listing/the-list/list-entry/1204320
context_page_description: Frindsbury, sometimes called Frinsbury, is part of the Medway Towns conurbation in Kent, southern England. It lies on the opposite side of the River Medway to Rochester, and at various times in its history has been considered fully or partially part of the City of Rochester. Frindsbury refers to both a parish and a manor. Within the civil parish of Frindsbury Extra are the villages of Frindsbury, Wainscott, and Upnor. Frindsbury was also the name given to an electoral ward in the City of Rochester that straddled the parishes of Frindsbury and Strood.
  Frindsbury started as a small agricultural community, grew into a significant industrial centre and declined into a dormitory suburb, each generation erasing the traces of the previous.
context_section_description: The official listing description is drawn from Rigold (1966) and ascribes a date of 1300.  Austin (2005, p. 4) challenges this date on the basis of dendrochronological and radiocarbon dating performed in 2002.  The former gives a felling date of 1403, the latter 1400 ± 60 years.
  The barn is of aisled construction and until the fire was 65.6 metres (215 ft) by 10.6 metres (35 ft).  The barn is notable for the quality of its construction: "the undoubted queen of the Kentish barns", "Its carpentry is peerless" (both quotes from to Rigold (1966, p. 10)) or Austin's view "exemplary and executed to a high standard".
  The footings are of mortared flint and stone rising to 1.2 metres (3 ft 11 in) at the northern end of the barn.  They may originally have been lime rendered internally.  The heart of the structure is a series of rectangular frames (arcade posts and collar beams) rising approximately 5 metres (16 ft) above the dwarf walls.  The frames are transversely braced.  Linking the tops of the frames longitudinally is the arcade plate which is jointed and braced to each upright.  2 metres (6 ft 7 in) outside the arcade are the aisle posts (2m high) supporting an aisle tie to the main arcade posts.  The aisle posts are linked by the eaves plate, though not braced to it.  Resting on and braced to the collar beams are crown posts supporting a collar plate.  The rafters are supported by the eaves plates, arcade plates and collar plates forming a single unbroken slope.  To complete the exterior of the building, weatherboards run from under the eaves vertically down to the ground plates.  The weatherboards are thought to be a rare survival of the original boards.  A dendrochronological of one board gave 1357, but this was not the outermost ring of the tree.
  The roof may have been originally thatched but is now covered with peg tiles.  The entire roof has been retiled on new battens during the 1970s though earlier hand made tiles have been reused alongside modern machine made tiles.
  Although the structure shows little sign of decay and replacement, the rafters above the aisles of bays 7 and 11 are of machine sawn softwood.  In same bays, and also the lost bay 3, the medieval footings are also absent.  Austin argues that this suggests the location of tall entrances (midstreys) at these points.
caption: View of the south end of the barn
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