Bloomsbury Stud Stables And Adjoining Buildings Forming South East Part Of Park Farm Complex

SP 93 SE WOBURN WOBURN PARK SP 9433-9533 3/184 & 8/184 Bloomsbury Stud Stables and adjoining buildings 23.1.61 forming SE part of Park Farm complex GV II Stables and adjoining buildings forming SE part of Park Farm. This model farm was designed 1795 (completed 1797) by Robert Salmon, resident architect and 'mechanist' to the estate, for Francis 5th Duke of Bedford. Red brick, the main elevations in coursed ironstone. Shallow pitched slate roofs. Main block is long low structure (approximately 50 metres long) continuing line of main front of item 8/183, with various blocks adjoining to rear (S). Rustic Neo-classical style. N (front elevation: symmetrical arrangement. 2-storeyed central gable linked to 2 single-storeyed outer gables by single-storeyed ranges. Gables project slightly. Central gable has broad central recess, its semi-circular arch springing from first floor level. Impost string course continuing across central recess is in line with eaves cornices of flanking ranges. Central recess contains plank door with sidelights, the latter being casements with ornamental geometric glazing bars of c.1830. First floor has 2-light casement within recess arch, and clockface above arch. Roof surmounted by timber pyramidal-roofed bell-cote. Flanking single-storeyed ranges and outer gables formerly had doors and windows similar to those in central gable recess, but now replaced by C20 double stable doors. Deep eaves and verges with moulded timber cornices. The 5th Duke was deeply interested in estate management and agricultural developments. Park Farm was intended as a place to demonstrate new agricultural technology, and was the setting for the annual Woburn Sheep Shearing, depicted in George Garrard's 1804 painting and engraving of the same subject. Bedfordshire Record Office: R Box 818 bundle 18/19 ff, elevations of stables, n.d.; J M Robinson, "Farming on a Princely Scale: Estate buildings of the 5th and 6th Dukes of Bedford at Woburn 1787-1839", Architectural Review, November 1976, pp. 276-279.

Listing NGR: SP9600533238