The Barn's History

Built on the foundations of an earlier monastic barn belonging to the nuns of the Benedictine Abbey of Polesworth, the tithe barn has stood on the Hall Court site for over three hundred years. The first documented mention of the building is in the 1655 will of Sir Francis Nethersole, Lord of the Manor of Polesworth. In it, he describes the Barn as being newly erected; however, no evidence for the actual date of its erection has thus far been uncovered.

From Sir Francis's death, in 1659, until the abolition of the tithe system in 1836, Polesworth's tithes were stored in the tithe barn. Dating from the Middle Ages, the tithes were a local tax in kind, collected for the parish church to support the incumbent cleric (a tenth of farm produce was gathered annually, the word tithe coming from the Old English teogotha, meaning tenth). In addition to maintaining the post of vicar at the Abbey Church, the Polesworth tithes also financed the Nethersole School.

In 1912, Sir George Chetwynd, the then Lord of the Manor, put the Hall Court site (including the tithe barn) up for sale. A consortium of local gentlemen, realising the significance of the site to the village, stepped in and bought the area before it was put up for auction.

In July of 1946, the Hall Court site was purchased by Polesworth Parish Council for £900. But, despite new owners, the tithe barn suffered a slow decline in its fortunes over the next fifty years. A stable before the war, it was employed as housing for evacuated families during the 1940's. Later it became a builder's store, whilst, in the early 1980's, it was a base for a Youth Training Scheme project.

A Grade II listed building since 1968, the barn had deteriorated into a state of near collapse by the end of the 1980's. The structure was still standing only thanks to scaffolding. "Dangerous Building" signs were also posted around it by The Parish Council.

In 1993/94, a major building project, partly funded by European Commission grants, saw the complete rebuilding of the barn, which, upon completion, was reopened as The Tithe Barn Resource Centre in July, 1995.

Further Information:

If you would like to find out more about village's history, visit the Polesworth History web site.