E Shaped Range Of Farm Buildings To The East Of Speke Hall

E-shaped range of farm buildings to the east of Speke Hall

This is a range of farm outbuildings dating from the late 19th century, with minor 20th-century alterations. The roofs of a covered cattle yard were demolished following a fire. The buildings are constructed from snecked, rock-faced red sandstone and plain red brick, some rendered, beneath slated roofs with oversailing eaves and verges and full-length ridge ventilators.

The complex has an E-shaped plan with a spine range running east-west parallel to the access track, and three parallel ranges extending southwards to enclose two cattle yards, one of which was formerly covered.

The spine range's north elevation has 13 bays arranged in the pattern 1:5:1:5:1, with advanced gables at the end and centre. To the left of the centre gable is a 5-bay open-fronted cart lodge with shallow arches supported on cast-iron columns set on low stone piers. The east gable has an arched doorway with a blocked loft door above. The centre gable features an arched double door and a tall loft doorway with sloping cill. Further right, a wide archway with substantial spur stones leads into the western yard. To the right of this archway are 4 bays with paired breathers, and a west gable with an arched double doorway with boarded doors and a loft doorway above.

The west wing's west elevation has 2 and 3-light mullioned windows. Its south gable has twin doors and a loft door above, while the east elevation has 2 and 3-light mullioned windows and an off-centre doorway.

The central wing's east elevation has an archway leading to the eastern yard, followed by three doorways with 2-light mullioned windows between. Above the left-hand doorway is a gabled loft doorway with a boarded door. An off-centre octagonal chimney serves the smithy hearth at the centre of the wing. The south gable has twin doorways and a loft door above. The east elevation is a brick wall with two 2-light mullioned windows and two doors.

The east wing's west elevation is now rendered. Its south gable has a centre doorway with a loft door above, and the east elevation has an arched double doorway at the south end, two 3-light mullioned windows, and a range of four pig sties arranged in pairs with low enclosure walls, low entries into pens, and a taller arched feed passage.

The former covered yard area enclosed by the centre and east wings is indicated by a former roof valley girder supported on three tapering cast-iron columns to the centre and stone corbels to the inward-facing corners of the central and east wing gables. In-situ feeding troughs remain.

The interiors have been much altered with most fittings removed. The central wing contains a smithy with a timber baffle, smithy hearth with bellows recess and a wide chimney with an arched recess. The doorways have sliding door gear set within reveals. Some surviving lineshafting remains, and one fixed feed chopping machine is present in the loft of the central wing.

This is an architecturally distinctive and well-detailed range of 'model' farm buildings, incorporating the remains of a covered yard and with surviving smithy hearth and chimney, together with an integral cart lodge and pig sties. It forms an important part of the 19th-century development of the Speke Hall Estate and demonstrates the building design theories and integrated approaches to livestock husbandry that were current at that time.