Park Farm Cottages

SP 9433-9533 WOBURN WOBURN PARK 8/189 Nos. 3 and 4 Park Farm Cottages GV II Pair of Bedford estate cottages. Probably erected by the 7th Duke in the later 1840's. Red brick with ashlar dressings. C20 tile roofs. Asymmetrical plan, one storey and attics. Picturesque Tudor style. 2 and 3-light mullioned windows, with cast iron lattice casements and moulded dripstones. W and E elevations have gabled porches with moulded 4-centred arches and stone coped gables with finials. Ashlar quoins to all angles. Variety of chimney stacks, one projecting from N elevation, others to ridges. Paired diagonal shafts with moulded bases and caps. Dentil cornices to eaves. Although Picturesque in detail, these cottages also belong to the 'utilitarian' phase of Bedford Estate building begun in the late 1840's (and ending with World War I, by which time approximately 500 cottages had been built in the area). The 7th Duke had been one of the first to recognise the advantages of housing agricultural labourers in dwellings which were comfortable and practical rather than purely ornamental, and the constructional quality of these early buildings is remarkably high. The ornamental detailing may be partly due to the siting of the building within Woburn Park near the Park Farm complex, and has similarities with that in plan 7 of the 7th Duke's Plans and Elevations). The (7th) Duke of Bedford: Plans and Elevations of cottages for Agricultural Labourers, London 1850 (reprint of letter and plans sent 1849 to Earl of Chichester, President of Royal Agricultural Society); the (11th) Duke of Bedford: A Great Agricultural Estate, being the story of the Origin and Administration of Woburn and Thorney, London 1897; Rev C H Hartshorne: The systen of building Labourers' cottages pursued on the estates of His Grace the] Duke of Bedford, n.d. but probably 1849.

Listing NGR: SP9575233296