Cow House, Aqualate Hall

This is a cow house on the Aqualate Hall estate, dating from circa 1800. The building is constructed of red brick with a red clay tile roof. It is rectangular in plan, originally built as part of a longer range, now detached.

The cow house is a two-storey building with a hipped roof. The east wall, originally providing access from the farm courtyard, has three doors, while the west wall has four. Narrow slit-like windows with stone sills, set level with the door tops, provide light and ventilation, along with two larger windows in the rebuilt north wall. The upper floor of the east and west walls features seven square 'windows' which are fairly evenly spaced. Three of these on the east side are open to allow access for fodder and bedding to a boarded attic storeroom, while the others are blind, featuring recessed panels of brickwork pierced by large, lozenge-shaped ventilation panels. All seven of the 'windows' on the west side take this latter form.

Internally, the cow house has three relatively large bays. The southern bay contains a pair of stalls, while the central and northern bays each have three stalls facing a dividing panel, accommodating a total of eight pairs of animals. A loft, accessed by a vertical ladder and trapdoor, is a single open space. The roof is supported by a king-post and features double banks of staggered butt purlins.

The history of this structure is not documented, but architectural evidence suggests a date of circa 1800. Originally, the cow house formed the southern end of a north-south range as part of a farm courtyard, but it was later truncated, probably soon after 1879. At that time, an internal wall was reworked to create the new north gable-end wall of the cow house, with a hip added to the north end of the roof to match the existing southern hip.

The cow house is designated at Grade II for its significance as a large and well-detailed cow house of circa 1800, likely built to house parkland cattle. Despite alterations, the building retains its internal fittings including stalls, and is part of an architecturally interesting group of estate buildings including Grade II listed stables and the Grade II listed Aqualate Hall.