Village Hall Series #598 - Barley (The Town House) Multi-Cache

The Town House (which means Community or People's House) dates back to the 16th century and is one of the oldest buildings in the village. The building has belonged to the village for nearly 500 years. It is now the village hall and must be one of the oldest village halls in the county, if not the whole country. It is a listed Grade 2* building and has housed a school, villagers and even a fire engine in its colourful history. It is thought that the Town House replaced a former building which had stood there for about 400 years. It was rebuilt with funds thought to have been made available by William Warham, Rector of Barley at the turn of the century and later Bishop of London, Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord High Chancellor who founded a school in it to teach Latin to poor boys and so it had educational connections from an early date. Tradition says that he was very attached to Barley and this is probably true as he is believed to have had a good deal to do with the early work of the Town House. Though used as a school during the 17th century hardship caused by the Civil War and the Napoleonic Wars later meant that any extra mouths to feed aggravated the already heavy burden of the Poor Rate. The Town House ceased to be used as a school and became a workhouse. At one time there were 28 paupers accommodated there and in 1853 36 people were living in the Town House as a workhouse when the Rev R A Gordon was appointed Rector and he had them accommodated elsewhere, possibly in Royston where Heath Lodge had been built in 1835 to cater for the surrounding villages. School matters were little better in the middle of the 19th century. Considerable alterations to the Town House were made so that it could be used as a school again and it had 140 scholars when it reopened. An interesting relic of the building's use as a school was the second lower stair rail on the staircase nearer the church. Towards the end of the 19th century difficulties arose over the continued use of the Town House as a school. On one occasion ink froze in the inkwells in spite of two large fires. The authorities wanted to pull down the Town House and build a new school on the site but luckily this was rejected and the present school came in to use in a building next door to the Town House on 22nd April 1895. A second staircase was put at the back of the Town House and dormer windows added when the small room was enlarged but this staircase was replaced by the one at the end nearest the present school in 1910. A drawing of about 1850 shows a staircase in the middle of the south front facing the road. This must have been removed when the dormer windows were put in. A sketch of the Town House dated about 1835 shows a central chimney stack in addition to those at each end. This was later removed but it is from the time when the ground floor was divided in to living quarters, each with its own fireplace. The twin fireplace in the smaller downstairs room and the dividing wall are the remaining evidence of this use of the building. The maple flooring was matched upstairs by a similar finish when a new floor was laid in 1993. The end of 1994 saw the completion of more radical improvements to the Town House facilities to meet the requirements of health and safety legislation but also to provide more pleasant and practical amenities.

This is a multi cache and IS NOT at the published coordinates.

The cache is a 5ml tube.

At the published coordinates you will find a round plaque on the wall above head height. Check out this plaque.

The year on the plaque is ABCD.

The number of letters in the word starting with A directly above the year is E.

Checksum of all digits in the coordinates = 43

This cache is part of a series of caches which are placed at or near village halls and community centres. For details and statistics visit the Village Hall Series website Click here