Cothelstone is a small village five miles NW of Taunton, consisting of the church, the manor farm and a few dwellings built along a lane off the road running N out of Bishops Lydeard. The barn runs NW to SE, at right angles to Cothelstone road, and is built over a cartshed with attached wings including a cowshed on the R (SE) and a granary on the L (NW), the complex forming three sides of a rectangular fold yard. It is of red sandstone random rubble with brick and white limestone dressings, a bitumen covered slate roof, coped verges with kneelers and weathervane on the R gable end. It is of two storeys, built into the hillside over an open arcaded basement facing the fold yard, with ground floor access from the higher ground at the rear. The two inline arcades are 12thc. According to the owner, the arcades were inserted when the barn was moved in 1857, not having been appropriate on the more level ground to the W. The EH list description records a tablet bearing the date of 1867. One of these two dates may be an error.
