Watnall Hall in Nottinghamshire and its medieval tithe barn were bulldozed in August 1962 following a decision by the Minister of Works, Mr Hugh Molsen, to overturn a previous preservation order. The reason given was the cost of repairs due to mining subsidence. Various conservation bodies including the National Trust had at one time been interested in the hall but nothing came of it. A local lad who did his paper round by the hall in 1963 remembers... "I saw it as a pile of rubble. The ''young Conservatives'' had a massive bonfire that November the 5th using all the massive timbers."
The original Watnall Hall was built around 1450 for Sir Richard Bingham, a high-ranking Justice of the King’s Bench with later additions by the Rolleston family at the time of William and Mary. The tithe barn has a curious-church like aspect on the gable end wall facing the hall with an entrance porch and pointed gothic windows. On the 1639 Rampton tapestry map of Nottinghamshire the hall is depicted with a church right next door where no church has ever existed. So its original and subsequent use remains something of a mystery.
