1) Initially this was probably the building where bark was stored.
It was the source of an early by-name: 1330 Ralph del Barkhous, East Ayton. In 1395 a Whitby tenant took unum croftum … juxta le barkehouse , and in 1491 there was un’ domu’ voc’ a Barkhous at Hipperholme. The inventory of a Selby tanner who died in 1673 valued four loads of bark in the bark house at Ł6 13s 4d. However, wills of the sixteenth century make it clear that leather was also stored in the bark house, and other documents associate the building more closely with the tan-house itself. In 1551, for example, Robert Croft of Collingham willed that his son should have and occupie his stoke of ledder in the barke howse and a Fountains Abbey lease of 1532 lists seisterns, fattes, towbes and all odre vessels to the … barkhouse belonging for tanning .