Fountaines Farmhouse

This is a late 19th-century farmhouse and attached service range, built in 1875. It was designed by William Clutton, an architect from London, for the Duke of Bedford. The property is located in Milton Bryan.

The farmhouse is constructed of smooth red brick with ashlar stone detailing and decorative brickwork, including tall brick ridge and gable chimneys with clustered stacks and substantial brick caps. It is topped with a clay tile roof. The building is arranged linearly, with the main house aligned northeast-southwest and an L-shaped wing extending southeastwards. An attached service range is located at the southwest end, enclosing a small courtyard.

The front (northwest) elevation is two storeys and four bays, set on a shallow chamfered plinth, with a single-storey bay to the southwest end. A gabled porch with open arcaded ground floor and diagonal bracing structures the off-centre entrance. The doorway has a stone surround and a plank door. Above the porch is a four-light mullioned window beneath a gablet with decorative painted box frame detailing. A transomed four-light window is on the ground floor to the left of the porch, above a dentilled string course. To the right of the porch is a single-light opening above a two-light upper-floor window, followed by stacked six-light windows with major mullions to the end bay. The single-storey bay is blind, with a low enclosure wall fronting the service court.

The rear elevation features an advanced half-hipped gable on the right with a canted ground floor and a transomed six-light window to the ground floor, below a six-light first-floor window, both openings with major mullions. To the left is a set-back gabled stair tower with a transomed two-light window at the half-landing level. The main range extends to the left, featuring a plain rear doorway, a late 20th-century inserted screen, and a six-light mullioned window set on a brick cill band. At the southwest end, an advanced part of the service court range with a hipped end encloses the rear of the service court. The service range has shallow arched heads to its doors and windows, and glazing bar window frames.

Inside, the entrance hall has doorways with four-panelled doors and leads to the principal stair. The stair features square underpanelling, closely spaced splat balusters, and polygonal finialled newel posts. Plain surrounds are present to the hearths at ground and first-floor levels, with semi-circular grates. Four-panelled doors lead to the upper-floor rooms.

This is a substantial late 19th-century farmhouse with an attached service range, designed by William Clutton for the Bedford Estate. It is relatively unaltered externally and demonstrates the investment in architecturally distinctive farmsteads by a major landed estate during the ‘High Farming’ period of the second half of the 19th century.