Dairy and brewhouse with attached pigsties approximately 50 metres east of Pradoe

Dairy and brewhouse with attached pigsties approximately 50 metres east of Pradoe

A dairy and brewhouse with attached pigsties, built circa 1806 with minor later alterations and late 20th-century restoration. At the time of inspection in 2003, it was being used as a museum.

The building is constructed of uncoursed sandstone rubble with the north gable end of the dairy squared and dressed. The roofs are slate. The dairy is linked by a part-covered passage to the brewhouse on the south, with pigsties attached along the east side and a slaughterhouse in the northern bay.

The dairy is one storey with an attic. The north gable end features a round-arched doorway with a nail-studded plank door, flanked by a segmental-headed 19th-century casement window to the right, a horizontal sliding sash to the left, and a central oval window opening to the gable. The south gable end has segmental-headed leaded casements on both the ground floor and attic, with a segmental-headed boarded door to the right. The west wall has a doorway with a gable breaking the eaves, approached by external lateral steps to the left of centre, and an integral corner stack with a red brick shaft to the right. A 19th-century cast-iron pump stands in front of the south gable end, featuring a plain ringed shaft, a fluted dome cap with a pointed finial, and a slightly curved handle; a cast-iron sink is positioned below. The passage linking the dairy to the brewhouse contains a stone trough below the eaves and a segmental-headed doorway to the east with stone basins for mixing pig swill to the south.

Inside, the dairy consists of two rooms. The north room has stone shelves with 18th-century and later wall tiles depicting rural scenes, and stained glass in the horizontal sliding sash. The rear room has a chamfered ceiling beam and a tiled floor. A copper, cheese and butter presses, and churns are located in the right rear corner. A wooden stair leads to the loft, where the roof structure has two pairs of purlins.

The brewhouse is one storey with a segmental-headed window at the centre of the west wall. The interior is open to the roof in two bays with a central king-post. Two coppers, reinstated in the late 20th century, are fitted side by side in a continuous bank of brickwork. A single flue is fitted between the coppers and against the side wall, with two niches providing firebox access at ground floor. A timber platform at the level of the copper rim, with renewed late 20th-century railing, is supported on stone block piers. The underworks, pump ties, coolers, and a stone cistern are largely intact.

The pigsties and slaughterhouse are located to the east side of the dairy and brewhouse. A single-storey range of pigsties is covered by a catslide roof, with stone and brick walls continuing toward the farmyard at the east enclosing runs. The slaughterhouse extends further and is taller, with a gabled roof fitted with a pulley beam.

The brewhouse was one of several outbuildings constructed around 1806 by Thomas Kenyon, who had purchased Pradoe as a wedding present for his wife, Louisa Charlotte, in 1803. The brewhouse is positioned conveniently behind the pigsties and midden yard for the disposal of grains. Tradition states that the rear porch at Pradoe was designed to accommodate visitors who would use it to consume their ale or beer allowance. Brewing continued at Pradoe until 1902. The brewhouse was restored a century later, including the reinstatement of new coppers.

This building is listed as a good example of a circa 1806 integrated dairy, brewhouse and pigsty that complements the Grade II* Pradoe and its attached service ranges and outbuildings, the Grade II farm buildings, manure sump, kitchen garden wall, and carpenter's shop, as well as the Grade II Registered landscape. Together, these structures form a group with significant heritage value.