Farmbuildings at Meadow House Farm

Farm outbuildings at Meadow House Farm, Pulford. Late 19th century, with minor 20th century alterations. Attributed to John Douglas, architect of Chester, for the Westminster Estate.

The complex comprises red brick construction with rendered and mock timber-framing details. Hipped and half-hipped roofs are covered with clay tiles. The buildings form a linear main range with attached ancillary ranges to the rear, creating an irregular L-shaped complex.

The main range extends north-east to south-west and combines single-storey and two-storey sections. At the north-east end stands a Dutch barn and lofted cartshed, the latter featuring a half-hipped gable with render and applied timber-framing to the apex. Wide segmental arch-headed openings serve the Dutch barn. The cartshed has a shallow segmental arch and boarded double doors, with narrow windows and shallow buttresses flanking the doorway. A curved dripmould sits above the arched head, with later inserted loft openings above. A full-height arched opening or driftway provides access to a long two-storeyed rear range with multiple ground-floor doorways, a double doorway, and upper-storey openings.

To the right of the driftway sits a single-storey bay linking to a two-storey unit with a central gable. Below the gable is a recessed double doorway with shallow segmental arch and dripmould, flanked by shallow buttresses. Single doorways with small windows above flank this section. A wide arch-headed taking-in door sits above the main doorway, with smaller inserted openings below plain wooden lintels on either side. The hipped roof slopes at each end of this unit extend rearwards as parallel wings with rendered rear gables incorporating apex windows with leaded glazing in domestic style.

A single-storey cartshed with granary above adjoins the driftway on the other side, while further south-west is a long single-storey section now used as a milking parlour. Extending from the rear is a shallow U-shaped cowhouse with half-hipped ends and two half-hipped gablets to the rear wall. The end and rear wall gablets display render and applied timber-framing decoration with small multi-pane windows.

Interior spaces in the lofted units retain exposed roof trusses, purlins and rafters with minimal alteration. The granary overloft displays a fully-exposed roof system with full-width tie beams supported on intermediate posts, with steep angle braces extending from the post bases to the frontage range tie beams. At ground-floor level lies a three-sided arcade of semi-circular and pointed arch openings accessed from the frontage doorways, with small windows at their heads. These appear to be covered feed passages with access to a central distribution space below and to stalling on either side.

Meadow House Farm formed part of extensive farm improvement investment by the Westminster Estate in the late 19th century. John Douglas, the celebrated Chester architect, was closely associated with this programme, designing many new or improved farmsteads for the estate. The attribution of these buildings to Douglas is confirmed by his biographer, Edward Hubbard. The original farmhouse has been demolished, and the present dwelling is thought to have been formed from an earlier outbuilding range.