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Simprim Farm

Barn (17th Century), Farmhouse (19th Century), Farmstead (19th Century)

Site Name Simprim Farm

Classification Barn (17th Century), Farmhouse (19th Century), Farmstead (19th Century)

Alternative Name(s) Simprin; Simprim, Old Barn

Canmore ID 59560

Site Number NT84NW 14

NGR NT 84976 45293

Datum OSGB36 - NGR

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/site/59560

Ordnance Survey licence number AC0000807262. All rights reserved.
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Digital Images

Administrative Areas

  • Council Scottish Borders, The
  • Parish Swinton
  • Former Region Borders
  • Former District Berwickshire
  • Former County Berwickshire

Accessing Scotland's Past Project

The nineteenth-century farmsteading at Simprim Farm has been built around the remains of an earlier barn , built for the Cockburn family in the 1680s, the largest surviving building of its type in the country.

The seventeenth-century building stands three storeys high, and is built on an L-plan. Its north, east and west walls are now much obscured by later alterations, but its characteristic crowstepped gables can still be seen. Many of the building's original door and window openings still survive, though most are now blocked.

Text prepared by RCAHMS as part of the Accessing Scotland's Past project

Archaeology Notes

NT84NW 14 84976 45293

The farmhouse and a very large barn are all that remain of the pre-20th century farmstead at this site. The barn is over 64m in length and almost 8m wide. Originally it was of four storeys; now only three remain, but the fourth is evident from the truncated and blocked window opening visible in the S gable wall. To the N is a stair wing, now truncated, which would have once provided access to all four floors. It bears the date 1686 on the lintel and the initials 'AC'. There are five bays with arched doorways and square openings or windows centred above and situated at first-floor level. It is constucted of random rubble with dressed and chamfered ashlar surrounds to the openings. Crow-stepped gables surmount a slate-tiled roof. Originally a single-storeyed building stood at the S end of the barn adjoining the E elevation. Modern structures of corrugated materials have been built onto to the long sides of the barn. When visited in 1997 the barn was in agricultural use.

Information from RCAHMS (SS), 16 February 2006.

Architecture Notes

EXTERNAL REFERENCE

'History of the Berwickshire Naturalists' Club' 43.1, 1984, pp17-24 - 'Simprim in the Merse' by R C Wood

Activities

Photographic Survey (May 1962)

Photographs of barn at Simprin Farm and Simprin Church, Berwickshire, by the Scottish National Buildings Record in 1962

Sbc Note

Visibility: This is an upstanding building.

Information from Scottish Borders Council.

References

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