Templars Barn is situated adjacent to Ermin Street, an important arterial Roman road connecting Silchester to Cirencester, the route from Dover to Gloucester. Templars may have derived its name from a Knights Templar rest house for travellers. The Templars carried out their charitable work at Bisham Abbey, Marlow and Chippenham. Templars Farm was probably a subsidiary of the Manor of Shefford, held by the Fettiplace family (the Sheriffs of Oxfordshire at that time) during the 13th and 14th Centuries.

Shefford itself is an ancient settlement with evidence of Bronze Age occupation; Hug’s Ditch, and a Saxon burial ground. The area of Shefford held historical significance during the first Civil War (1640-45), when Charles I stayed at the Manor House and Cromwell marshalled his cavalry before the Second Battle of Newbury at Donnington. A lead pistol ball, thought to be of the period was subsequently discovered in a field close to Templars Barn.

The midwife who testified against Wild Will Darrell of Littlecote House came from Shefford. Asked to deliver a lady of high birth at Littlecote, she rode blindfold but was able to identify the house by the number of streams crossed by her horse on the journey. Once the infant was delivered Darrell cast him onto an open fire where he perished; Littlecote is said to be cursed to this day.

The present Templars House was built in the 1790s and the surrounding farm barns date from this period with the addition of several newer buildings. The steading follows the traditional Georgian design, which reflects the increase in grain production as a result of Jethro Tull’s invention of the seed drill at Prosperous Farm, south of Hungerford.

Templars House stands apart from the farm buildings. To the north and east, two large barns stand perpendicular to each other in order to protect the house from severe weather. Templars Barn is one such barn remaining on the east side of the steading. During the storms of January 1990 the barn collapsed but has since been restored, retaining much of the original timber. It follows the original design, a ‘clasped purlin’ roof, with the whole held together with wooden pegs. The exposed frame is made from English oak, a highly sought after building material in the 18th and 19th Centuries as most quality timber was used to build warships for the Navy.

Templars Barn itself was probably made from the parts of two earlier barns and erected when the house was built in the 1790s. It comprises two three-bay thrashing barns joined together by a bridging bay making a seven bay structure, 105 feet long and 25 feet wide. On the north, east and west sides the barn has an aisle giving valuable extra space and bringing the roof level closer to ground level to increase the protection from the weather. It may have been used as a double thrashing barn or combining arable and livestock, a single thrashing barn with livestock in one half. During this period, grain was at a premium due to the Napoleonic wars and wet harvests. It would, therefore, have been stored in the saddle-stoned granary close to the main house.

The structure of Templars Barn follows the standard design for all oak-framed buildings used in England from the 13th century onwards. The design consists of a series of jowl posts (uprights) supporting a tie beam with beams and posts connected by a dovetail lap joint. On each beam a principal rafter and a supporting strut ‘clasps’ the horizontal purlin which supports the rafters running from the wall tops to the ridge where they join each other in a ‘bridle joint’. The concept of a horizontal ridge board is Victorian, post dating this barn. The whole is held together by 850 oak pegs.

In 2001, to the south east of the barn, 850 English oak trees were planted to represent each peg.