Fen Ditton - Barn NW of Hall, perhaps formerly a Guildhall 2014-12-08

From NE. Late C15 or early C16; restored and converted 1974. According to the RCHM, the high standard of carpentry suggests that the lower compartment only was used for storage and that the main rooms on the first floor were set aside for other use such as a guild hall or 'town house'; evidence survives for a first-floor entrance on the E. presumably by way of an external staircase and porch. There was formerly a lode alongside leading from the nearby River Cam, whose importance prior to the building of the railways is suggested by a complaint from nearby Fulbourn in 1806 that the lack of a bridge over a new drainage ditch deprived them of "a Road to Ditton for Coals and other Fuel [which] is an additional expense in the Carriage" [Don Crane, The highways and byways of Fulbourn (1991), p.105.] Listing: list.english-heritage.org.uk/resultsingle.aspx?uid=1331306 ; RCHM: www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/cambs/vol2/pp47-65 (item 3).