Hodcott Barn, Animal House And Cottages, At Manor Farm

Hodcott Barn, Animal House and Cottages at Manor Farm

This mid-19th-century farmstead complex at West Ilsley comprises a threshing barn, animal house, and pair of semi-detached cottages. The buildings are mostly constructed in red brick with tiled roofs, except for the barn which is timber-framed with partial weatherboarding and a corrugated iron roof.

The complex is arranged as a U-shaped group of farm buildings to the north of a farmyard, with the cottages positioned to the south of the yard. A rectangular barn and animal house stand at right-angles to each other, alongside a now-derelict cart-shed.

The threshing barn is an impressive structure of eleven bays forming the northern side of the farmyard. It has brick plinth walls at the base with horizontal timber boarding above, and a replacement corrugated iron roof. The north elevation is punctuated by two large cart-entrances, which are paired on the south elevation. The southern examples have projecting porches—the westerly is gable-ended in weatherboarding while the easterly has a hipped roof in corrugated iron. Plain vertical boarded doors are present. The presence of two paired doors indicates two threshing floors within the barn. A lean-to outshot with corrugated roof supported on concrete piers stands between the south elevation's two entrances. The west end has lost much of its weatherboard cladding. Internally, the brick plinth wall terminates in angled brick copings, supporting a timber cill from which the timber frame rises. The roof is a queen-post design with chamfered tie-beams and knee-braces. Principal timbers are original, with only occasional sections such as a couple of braces on the south side and some rafters being replacements. Two missing partitions in the centre of the barn and to the east of the western door are evidenced by joints in the tie-beams. Much of the floor is not visible, although the western threshing floor is in concrete with some cobbling surviving at its northern end, and further cobbles are visible at the western end of the barn.

The animal house forms the west range of the farmyard. It is a brick two-storey structure with a tiled roof and plain ridge tiles. Single first-floor hayloft openings face the west and south elevations. The east elevation has two doors and two windows at ground floor level. All openings, apart from the southern doorway which has a concrete lintel, have shallow brick arched heads. A straight joint in the brickwork between this building and the threshing barn demonstrates they were not built as one. A small single-storey link with a corrugated lean-to roof and a further door with a brick arched head connects the two main buildings at the farmyard junction. All doors, windows and frames are timber. Some window glazing survives, as do some louvered openings for ventilation. Internally at ground floor level, the building divides into three spaces: a small room within the single-storey link; a central main space in the north of the animal house, divided by a boarded wall from a further small room to the south. The main north room has brick piers supporting the hayloft floor, in-situ hay racks and feed troughs with tethering rings along the west wall. A further feed trough runs along the west wall of the south room. The single-room hayloft above has a king-post roof. Stairs are no longer in place.

The cottages to the south of the farmyard are semi-detached in English bond red brick under a single half-hipped tile roof with crested ridge tiles and a central shared brick chimney stack. Projecting eaves have plain timber barge boards. Originally built as mirror images of each other, they show later alterations particularly evident in the treatment of the outbuildings at each end. The western outhouse has a lean-to roof, an ash pit and toilet, all accessed through a brick arched north entrance into a yard. The eastern outhouse area is more substantially modified with a lean-to tile roof to the north, an inserted ceiling, and a squat south chimney addition. The brickwork of the outhouses is less competent than that of the cottages, implying they are later additions. Each cottage has two entrances, to south and north. Front doors to the south are protected by brick porches with scalloped slate roofs. The majority of windows are boarded up, but internal inspection of the eastern cottage demonstrates that these are timber casements. The eastern cottage has a simple two-up two-down plan form with a wooden staircase in the north-east corner. Ceilings are of lath and plaster, walls are plastered, the ground floor is brick, and the upper floor is boarded. Simple plank doors with iron fittings are present. Some internal features survive, including built-in cupboards, skirting boards and fireplaces with simple wooden fire surrounds and some surviving iron grates. Bedrooms are partially under the eaves with sloping ceilings.

Hodcott Buildings is a subsidiary downland farmyard to the parent farm at Manor Farm. The precise construction date is not known, although evidence strongly suggests it was built in the mid-19th century. The Parliamentary Enclosure map for West Ilsley parish dated to 1828 shows the woodland known as Hodcott Copse, but no buildings at all to its south at the site of the present complex. However, by the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1879, a small farmyard area is depicted to the south of the copse and labelled "Hodcott Buildings". This shows in plan a U-shaped building to the north, a further rectangular block to its south, and a large circular feature at the south-east corner of the complex. The farm was part of the Lockinge Estate in the 19th century, which spent a great deal of money on building works and improving facilities, and thus productivity, during the 1850s. It is therefore possible that the Hodcott complex was built in the 1850s as part of this expansion, providing a small farmyard complex remote from the parent farm, with the two cottages enabling farm workers to live on site for reasons of practicality and security.

The complex is a good surviving example of a mid-19th-century remote downland farmstead with its variety of structures for animal husbandry, crop processing and storage, as well as the provision of farmworker accommodation. The buildings are of special interest for their architectural form and particularly for their group value given their spatial and functional inter-relationships.