Debden Barns, near Saffron Walden, are home to Debden Antiques. I came across the barns via their website and we paid a visit while on an Essex trip.
The barns are post & truss construction, built in the seventeenth century. In places the joint between the wall posts and the tie beam is reinforced with “knee joints” made from the point where the branch meets the trunk of the tree. In oak trees, this often forms a right angle and through this, the carpenter has the use of the natural strength of the trees grain running round the corner. I have also found this joint in barns of the same period in Suffolk, at Whitehouse Farm and Westwood Lodge Farm.
