Tithe Barn

Did you know we had a Tithe Barn in Whitchurch?

So where was it?
On the route of an ancient footpath called ‘Heol Don’ from the Wenallt to Llandaff, and just south of the Hollybush Pub (this is the footpath that had to be abandoned to allow the mental hospital to be built)
It was on the west side of the Merthyr Road, just north of the current hospital entrance
There’s nothing there now, but on the OS maps it’s recorded. Shown as a building on the maps of 1880 and 1900, and just as an outline on the 1920 map. All that is there now is a stand of pine trees. Perhaps the foundations of the old Tithe Barn might still be there, covered by the undergrowth?

How old was it
We don’t know, but probably many hundreds of years old. When a man called Draper was found hanged in the Tithe Barn in 1810, it was referred to then as ‘old’. There are examples of tithe barns locally in Glamorgan dating back to the 12th and 13th centuries

What did it look like?
Back then, it was the biggest building in the village by far. If you measure the OS map footprint it would have been about 30m long and 9m deep (100 feet by 27 feet)
The Royal Commission of Ancient and Historical Monuments Wales (RCHMW) suggests that these buildings were generally long and narrow with a central doorway on both front and back faces, tall enough for a haycart (or wain) to pass straight through. In Glamorgan the building were usually built of stone, although some were built of timber with rendered panels. Because they were so tall, maybe 7-8m (20-24 feet high) to the eaves, they needed buttresses. To ventilate the hay within the building, long slot vents or windows would have been provided all around
And of course, our Whitchurch Tithe Barn had a thatched roof
The sketch below suggests what it might have looked like in the middle of the 19th century at harvest time

So, what were tithes, and why did they need a barn to store them?
From the time of the Conquest, and probably before then, tenant farmers were required to pay their rent as a tenth (a tithe) of their crop. This was often due to the church or abbey who owned farm land. In Whitchurch, in mediaeval times, there was no great abbey, just Llandaff, and there were a number of feudal landowners as well
Who had the tithe barn built, and who collected the tithes? Perhaps we’ll never know

By 1841, the Tithe Map noted that the tithe barn was in a yard approximately 1 rood and 25 perches in extent! This is about half of an acre. The tenant was David Thomas, who was also the tenant of Ty Clyd Farm adjacent. The landowner was Richard Blakemore, the man who had taken over Velindre and the Melingriffith Tinworks
It’s interesting to note that the tithe barn and yard were considered of no tithe value!

What happened to it?
Nearly 60 years after the Tithe Map, when the village was expanding fast and the Cardiff Railway had been built, the bridge and sloping embankments (still there today) separated the Hollybush from the Tithe Barn. However, a disastrous fire broke out, and a report in the Evening Express newspaper dated 7th February 1900 reported:

‘Shortly before ten o’clock on Tuesday morning the Tithe Barn near Holly Bush, Whitchurch, was found to be on fire. An alarm was at once given, and Police-constables Bowen and Campbell, with some of the members of the Whitchurch Fire Brigade, were soon on the spot with the fire appliance. The barn, which had a thatched roof, contained a large quantity of straw, and there was no hope of saving it’

How can it be that one of the oldest and biggest buildings in Whitchurch could be lost without trace in such recent times? Even Edgar Chappell, in his chronicle of Whitchurch gives it scant reference

If the tithe barn was located in a village in England, or even elsewhere in the county, probably the ruins or the building outline would have been preserved. We have nothing, not even a plaque. The building deserves better. What do you think?

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