Oakwood Tithe Barn, near Battle

Oakwood Tithe Barn is one of the few surviving fourteenth-century tithe barns in the South East and is Grade I listed in its entirety — the highest level of statutory protection in England. Any intervention requires both Listed Building Consent and, in practice, consultation with Historic England.

Our role was tightly scoped: four scarf joint repairs to the lowest wall plate of the north aisle, where rising damp from the previous century had softened the heartwood beyond what further monitoring could justify. Dendrochronology of the surviving timber dated it to 1371–1389. Replacement oak was sourced from a single Sussex tree felled in 2019 and air-dried for five years — the closest match to the original growth characteristics that could reasonably be obtained.

Each scarf joint was cut to traditional proportions (a stopped-splayed scarf with pegged faces), wedged tight, and secured with oak pegs only. No steel. No adhesive. The joints are visible from inside the barn if you know where to look; to a visitor they disappear into the patina of six centuries of oxidation.