A Speculative History of Th’Owd Tithe Barn, Garstang

Th’Owd Tithe Barn is a popular pub located on the Lancaster Canal, with narrowboats moored alongside it in Garstang Basin. Its name suggests that it was a place for collecting tithes, these being a tenth of the produce a farmer gave to the church in tax. While the building certainly has the hallmarks of being a barn, whether it was an actual tithe barn will be discussed below. Its association with the Lancaster Canal is also not clear, with the basin it stands by labelled as a canal wharf on old maps.

The date stone on the outside of the building states 1710, although datestones on buildings that have been heavily renovated, as this one has, are sometimes a poor guide to the actual date of construction. In this case, the date stone is on the stone built ‘accommodation’ side of the structure, not the brick built part of the barn itself. The barn roof is supported by large inverted ‘V’ shaped frame beams. This type of construction is referred to as ‘box frame’, where the walls of the barn support the roof beams, in contrast to the cruck frame, where the supporting beams reach down to the floor (as can be seen at Great House Barn, in Rivington – see our page here). Some of the roof beams are curiously shaped, hinting at their antiquity.

Barns have two main functions: storage and threshing. The numerous air vents in the walls (most of which are now blocked) indicate that it would have been a place where grain or hay was stored. Both of these crops generate moisture and heat, which can encourage moulds to grow, so adequate air flow to cool them is necessary.

The right hand side of the building shows the brick built barn, with air vents clearly visible

Traditional threshing allowed the crop to be processed in a dry space, on the ‘threshing floor’ next to the large open doors. This was a two-part process. Sheaves of corn were beaten with a flail to separate the grain from the stem. The stems were collected up and would form the straw feed for animals. Further separation was now needed to tease apart the grain from its surrounding husk, known as chaff. This process was called winnowing. The grain was thrown in the air and any through-draught in a barn would blow the chaff away, with the heavier grain being retained.

Th’Owd Tithe Barn has large doors which could have led through to a threshing floor space. Often in threshing barns there are a second set of doors on the opposite wall to the entrance, and when both sets are open this allows a good through-draught. However, there has been a large amount of modification to the building’s far side, making this difficult to see if that was the case. The original large central opening that faces out onto the basin would also allow carts to pass through. It is now blocked, and in its place is the much smaller entrance way into the pub.

The large barn doors would have been centrally placed, where the pub entrance is today

While there is no doubt that this was a barn, it being a tithe barn is more doubtful. Tithes were established in Saxon England, and continued throughout Medieval times, and in some cases later than that. Grain could be sold by the church to maintain their ecclesiastical buildings and to pay the clergy. Abbeys and priories frequently had tithe barns in areas where they held land. After King Henry VIII destroyed the monasteries this practice still continued, but some of the lands were sold on to rich landowners who were not connected to the church. They could continue to collect tithes from those that farmed their lands. An act passed in 1836 abolished tithes in the form of physical goods, replacing them with a money payment.

The building is located on Church Street, which might seem like a clue, but nearby St Thomas’s Church was built in 1770, and the date stone on the ‘accommodation’ side of the barn predates this by sixty years. St Thomas’s is a ‘chapel of ease’, which means it was built to be within walking distance for the people of Garstang. Its mother church of St Helen’s is two miles away in Kirkland (see our page on it here). However, St Thomas’s is not the original chapel of ease as it had a precursor somewhere behind Garstang High Street, now no longer there, which went out of use some time in the 1700s. Interestingly, in Kirkland, St Helen’s church has a barn very close to it, now converted into a dwelling.

The interior of the pub reveals the grandeur of the roof

Most tithe barns date from the Medieval period, but there were later ones built too. Lancashire had a good number, but evidence of them is now only found in historical records, as the majority are long since demolished. The barn’s central location in Garstang is interesting as many tithe barns were located close to the heart of towns or villages. It has been noted by a number of experts who have written on the national distribution of tithe barns that many buildings now called tithe barns were never used for tithes. The name ‘tithe barn’ is just often given to an old barn in an area. Could this be the case here?

With the coming of the Lancaster Canal in the early 1800s the barn may have been used for the storage for goods being carried by narrowboat. On the map below, the words ‘canal wharf’ can clearly be seen on the opposite sides of the Garstang Basin, and the building in its present form can be made out, as can the smaller stone built building that still stands alongside it.

A 1910 map showing Garstang Basin. The barn is clearly shown with the word ‘wharf’ below it. Lancashire XLIV.8 National Library of Scotland

In 1973, John Wilding bought the barn and set it up as a pub and restaurant that displayed a host of agricultural implements. These are still on display today. Visitors can gaze up at tools and machinery while they eat and drink, and try to work out what they were used for. Some are obvious such as the picks, pitchforks and horse tackle, but other pieces have more obscure uses. Larger items such as hand carts, fruit presses and ploughing machinery are also on show. The store sign from local cloggers T Clarkson & Son of Bridge Street is also displayed, and from Harry Wilkinson, a wood turner from Forton, what looks like a complete set of tools can be seen. An old map that shows the field system of Garstang (a tithe map?) is also worth close inspection.

Some of the farming implements that adorn the walls

The pub is an interesting place to visit whether sitting within amongst the tools and machinery, or outside to view the narrowboats moored in the basin. The barn has survived as it has clearly always had an ongoing use, and as such continues to thrive into the 21st century.

Site visited by A. and S. Bowden 2024

Access

Th’Owd Tithe Barn has a car park and is also within walking distance from Garstang town centre

Nearby

Greenhalgh Castle

Preston to Garstang Turnpike Mile Posts

Garstang Toll House and Roman Mile Post

Wyre Aqueduct

Catterall Cross

St Helen’s Church

References

historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/national-farm-building-types/national-building-types-2014/