After sketching Stock Ghyll Force we continued our walk in the rain. As the weather was very wet we had planned a relatively short circular walk just outside Ambleside. The first stretch was along the gentler side of the Stock Ghyll valley. This took us past the outfarm near Low Grove Farm. It consists of a bank barn which had a cattle shed built onto the lower and end walls. It would allow the farmer to keep stock in easy reach of the fields rather than moving back and forth to the farmyard. Too wet to draw on site I took a few snap shots on my mobile phone. In the afternoon I sketched some studies of the barn to wile away the wet afternoon.
Of interest is the thin course of overlapping slates, used over the door lintels, instead of arches ocer the doors. The doors of the cattle shed have vents in them. The left hand door was probably the one for cleaning out the cattle, the right one for taking fodder into the cattle which would have been tied, their heads facing a feeding passage. The doors have hinges which are fixed to the top and bottom of the doors attached to the lintel and doorsteps.
