Home Farm buildings forming a quadrangle

Home Farm buildings forming a quadrangle

A group of farm buildings arranged around a quadrangle, built circa 1805 by architect Peter Atkinson of York for Edward Lascelles, 1st Earl of Harewood. The buildings are constructed in hammer-dressed stone with stone slate roofs, arranged as a balanced composition combining single-storey and two-storey ranges with quoins throughout.

The south range features a central gateway with flanking six-bay open cartsheds on either side, their segmental arches springing from square piers. These are topped with hipped roofs and connected by wall links to the east and west ranges, forming three sides of the quadrangle.

The west range comprises a central seven-bay barn with quoins and a segmental-arched cart-entry flanked by ashlar voussoirs, skewbacks and punch-dressed composite jambs. Either side are two ventilators with rectangular openings. A projecting eaves band runs along the structure beneath the hipped roof. Set back from this are lower flanking ranges of six bays with segmental arches on square piers (now blocked and cement rendered), one with a hipped roof and the other joining into the north range.

Behind stands another barn with a similar cart-entry and arched ground-floor windows at each end. Attached ranges comprise five bays on the left and three on the right, with similar arched windows positioned high beneath the eaves.

The east range contains a central four-bay two-storey dairy building with quoins, ashlar plinth and first-floor band. Bays two and four feature doorways with tie-stone jambs and arched fanlights with voussoirs. Ground-floor windows have projecting sills and arched heads with glazed fanlights. The first floor is lit by four bullseye windows and topped with a hipped roof with end stack to the left. Lower single-storey flanking ranges set slightly back flank this central block: the right wing extends five bays with matching arched windows and doors in the second, fourth and fifth bays beneath a hipped roof; the left wing spans six bays with similar arched doorways in bays one, two and six, a window in bay four, and paired segmental-arched cart entries in bays three and four leading through to the rear.

The north range forms the climax of the composition. Arranged symmetrically, it comprises a nine-bay two-storey central building with flanking single-storey three-bay wings that connect to the other ranges. Ground-floor bays contain round-arched windows and doorways, some retaining glazed fanlights. The two-storey section features an ashlar plinth and first-floor sill band with eaves band throughout. The central three bays project slightly and contain a tall cart-entry with quoined jambs and a moulded pedimented coped gable. First-floor windows are square with projecting sills and flat arches with voussoirs, some retaining small-paned sashes. Flanking the re-entrant angle of the cart entry are doorways with tie-stone jambs and chamfered surrounds.

Inside this range, the cart-entry leads into a barrel-vaulted passageway. Stone steps with simple cast-iron balustrade (handrail now removed) ascend to the first floor, which contains large rooms bearing evidence of former dado boarding on the walls, suggesting past use as accommodation. The roof above is a fish-bone king-post design with subsidiary struts.

This is a good example of a model farm built in the Carr classical tradition, though somewhat conservative for its date. When surveyed in 1985, the buildings were unused and in a sadly dilapidated state.