Following the submission of a planning application to convert a barn at Woodgate Farm, Lowick, Cumbria, into two dwellings, Greenlane Archaeology was commissioned to carry out an archaeological building recording. This took place in March 2026. The origins of the site are uncertain, in part because there are several properties nearby named Woodgate or Wood Gate in early documents. 'Wood Yate' is shown on Yate's map of Lancashire from 1786 but it is not until the Ordnance Survey maps were produced that accurate information about the building is available. These maps show that the barn had been constructed to approximately its present form by 1846. The pent roof along the north side was apparently added between 1890 and 1911. The building recording revealed that the structure comprises a good example of a true bank barn, built with its long (south) side against the slope, with an upper floor mostly forming a large threshing barn, and the lower floor housing for cattle. It was extended at the east end with a monopitch addition built of concrete blocks and with a corrugated concrete roof, probably to provide additional dairying facilities, while the main barn was also repaired and modified at around the same time. As such it demonstrates how such buildings continued to be used. The form of the building and the map evidence demonstrates that it was constructed before 1846, and it is of a type widely built during the late 18th and early 19th century. Such structures were intended to allow for the processing of crops and housing of cattle under one roof, with the latter element reflecting the increased demand for dairy products that occurred because of the increasing population during the Industrial Revolution.
Elsworth et al. (Thu,) studied this question.