Bishopwearmouth, tithe barn

A tithe barn once stood in the grounds of the rectory of Bishopwearmouth. Although its date of construction is unknown, it was probably medieval and perhaps last used for the storage of tithes by Archdeacon Paley. It was later used as a brewhouse, laundry, slaughterhouse, stable and hayloft. Built of local limestone, with walls 3 feet thick, and originally 108 feet long, it was - in 1905 - of two storeys, the upper with massive beams, and had a high pitched roof covered with pantiles above a bottom course of flagstones. The east wall had 3 buttresses and 2 ventilation slits 2 inches wide. The western half of the barn was demolished in the early nineteenth century to make way for a street, and the rest in the twentieth century.