Barn, pigsties, boundary wall to W of barn, yard, trough, ramp and flanking walls, Mill House Farm, Rails Lane, Midgley, Luddenden, Halifax

Barn, pigsties, boundary wall, yard, stone trough, ramp and retaining walls at Mill House Farm, Rails Lane, Midgley, Luddenden, Halifax

A combined barn with attached pigsties, yard structures and boundary wall dating from the third quarter of the 19th century and late 19th century. The architect is unknown. The buildings are constructed of millstone grit with slate and stone slate roofing.

The site comprises a large rectangular combined barn on the north side with pigsties attached at the east end, and a yard on the south side. The barn faces a coach house and cottage across the yard to the south, though these are not listed. At the east end of the yard a ramp descends, flanked by retaining walls on both sides.

The combined barn features a full-height cart bay with cart entrance at its centre, with floored two-storey bays on either side. The west side ground floor is divided into two rooms with separate doorways. The east side is fitted out as a milking parlour. The pigsties contain enclosed rooms with attached pens, mostly covered except for the right-hand pen.

The combined barn is constructed of regular courses of narrow, shaped and rock-faced millstone grit blocks with ashlar dressings of chamfered blocks decorated with incised lines forming borders around panels of delicately pecked stone. Chamfered quoining appears at the outer corners. An eaves table with modillion cornice and hipped slate roof complete the exterior.

The front elevation facing the yard has to the left of centre a large segmental-arched cart entrance with a chamfered ashlar frame of alternating jamb stones, shaped impost blocks and voussoirs with a keystone. The double doors are of diagonal boarding with metal sheeting on the lower halves. Above are paired segmental-arched windows sharing a central mullion, with chamfered ashlar frames, shaped impost blocks and keystones. The windows contain thin timber cross-frames. Towards the left end are two adjacent segmental-arched doorways with similar ashlar frames. The doors are of vertical boarding; the second is a split stable-type door with an upper light. Above this second doorway is an oculus with an ashlar frame of alternating blocks. To the right of the cart entrance is a segmental-arched doorway flanked by a segmental-arched window on each side, all with similar ashlar frames. High above each window is an ashlar-framed oculus.

The roadside west elevation has a row of three segmental-arched windows with chamfered ashlar frames at ground-floor level, each with thin timber cross-frames. At first-floor level in the centre is a similarly-sized segmental-arched ashlar-framed opening with vertically boarded shutters. The east elevation has a similar arrangement of three segmental-arched windows at ground-floor level and a central segmental-arched opening at first-floor level with timber shutters, all with chamfered ashlar frames. The lower part of this elevation is obscured by the lean-to roof of the pigsties which abuts the barn at window-sill level. The rear north elevation is blind.

The four pigsties are built of narrow coursed blocks of rock-faced millstone grit with larger tooled blocks forming doorframes and sills to openings. They are roofed in stone slate with a lean-to roof, cut back at the north end. The front elevation facing east has paired doorway openings, three fitted with iron doors with strap hinges. Horizontal openings beneath the roof-line have deep sills.

Internally the combined barn consists of six structural bays with five massive queen post trusses with collars flanked by vertical posts with diagonal struts. The timber is machine-sawn and bolted to the tie beams. At each end the roof hip has three diagonal rafters, each with a vertical mid-post and diagonal strut. The roof slates are laid on roofing battens. A wide full-height cart bay occupies structural bays two and three. The bays to each side are floored with deep cast-iron I-beams supporting slimmer closely-spaced cast-iron I-joists on which stone flags are laid to form a first-floor level. At the west end the first floor sits higher. The beams run along the building and are set into the exterior west wall and the internal stone wall separating structural bay one from the cart bay.

At the east end in bays four, five and six the I-beams run across the building with a particularly large cross-beam to the spine of the milking parlour, supported at its midpoint by a circular cast-iron column. The narrower cross-beams to each side are supported by a series of slimmer cast-iron columns which form the front and rear uprights of two rows of stall dividers. These have boarded half-height sides with cast-iron bound tops and bottoms. The stalls' flooring and central area are now concreted with gullies, though the ironwork appears original to the structure supporting the first floor. A passageway in bay six has stone-flagged floors.

The west end is separated by a masonry cross-wall with a doorway and three steps up from the cart bay. Two rooms are arranged one behind the other with a passageway alongside, each with an external door. A modern wide multi-paned window has been inserted between the two. The rear room has hooks attached to the cast-iron joists. The floor has been concreted; the front room is partly stone flags and partly concreted. The cart bay has a stone-flagged floor. A small modern workshop has been built at the rear with a first floor inserted against the back wall at the same height as the lower floor at the east end. On this first floor is a drive shaft attached to a brick-lined rear wall. The higher stone-flagged floor on the west side has a moulded timber cornice along the junction with the masonry wall. A small area of breeze-blocks appears at first-floor level in the south-east corner.

The pigsties have stone-flagged floors with pen dividers formed of large stone flags set vertically and bolted together.

The boundary wall between the road and combined barn has shaped and chamfered coping stones with incised lines forming borders of tooled stone to each side of continuous panels of delicately pecked stone.

The yard is paved in millstone grit setts with a ramp descending at the east end, flanked by coursed stone walls with similar chamfered coping with incised lines forming borders and pecked stone panels. A large rectangular stone trough stands on the north side of the yard against the combined barn.