Smithy, Byres and Dovecote, 12 Metres East of Hill House is a Grade II listed building in the County Durham local planning authority area, England. First listed on 4 July 1985. Outbuilding.
Smithy, Byres and Dovecote, 12 Metres East of Hill House
- WRENN ID
- kindled-parapet-sorrel
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- County Durham
- Constituency
- Bishop Auckland MP: Dr Sam Rushworth (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 4 July 1985
- Type
- Outbuilding
- OS grid reference
- NZ 183 179
- Coordinates
- 54.5561, -1.71705
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
This is a range of outbuildings located 12 metres east of Hill House, likely dating from the 18th century. The structure is built of roughcast and painted sandstone rubble with dressed quoins and features moderately-pitched pantiled roofs. It forms a continuous L-shaped range that includes a single-storey, three-bay smithy, a single-storey, single-bay byre, a set-back two-storey dovecote, and a single-storey, three-bay byre that is positioned at right angles to the north.
The smithy has a central boarded door with a fire-insurance mark and still contains its forge and bellows. The byre features a Dutch door and has a steeper-pitched roof. The dovecote's ground floor includes a byre with a Dutch door and an external stone staircase leading to a first-floor boarded door. The first floor has a blocked breather and an alighting band with entry holes located near the eaves. It is topped with a low-pitched pyramidal roof above a projecting eaves band, and features an octagonal glover of wood with a conical cap and weather vane. The interior is stone-lined and includes nesting boxes. The byre range attached to the north of the dovecote also has Dutch doors.
There is a detached range of farm buildings to the east of the dovecote, but these are not of special interest.
Local climate
Smithy, Byres and Dovecote, 12 Metres East of Hill House receives an average of 850 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 58% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 86% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 46 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 87% of listed buildings. Of these, 27 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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