Grange Farm

Grange Farm is a model farm complex built in 1878 for Alexander Baring, the 4th Lord Ashburton, comprising agricultural and residential buildings arranged in two abutting squares. It is constructed of Hampshire red brick with concrete block and slate roofs.

The larger southern complex contains stables and tack rooms at its south end, cart and horse stalls with a grain silo to the west, and old farm offices with a farmhouse to the east. The north side of this southern square forms an old cow milking area. These four wings enclose a central area which was later fitted with a military horse exercise area. The smaller northern complex has feed areas to the west and encloses an open yard.

The exterior uses red brick for visible and display-facing areas, with concrete block reserved for internal facing. The south façade, which served as the main approach, is decorated with drain pipe hopper heads stamped "A 1878". Window openings here have brick segmental arches and cement sills, with elongated panes set in iron mullions and transoms. Door openings have cement lintels. An archway with segmental arch stands at the east end of this façade beneath a slate roof. The north end is red brick with similar stamped drain pipes on the dairy gable. Windows in the dairy and farmhouse feature cement mullion and transom frames with cement lintels and sills. Chimneys are ornamented with brickwork designs and pots.

Interior finishes are predominantly cement block, except for the dairy which features a coloured tiled floor and walls of geometric and floral design, with ornate dragon and floral ironwork supports for a marble table running around the walls. A large central marble table sits on a marble plinth. The military horse exercise area roof comprises steel angle-frame trusses, while the old milking area has an interesting roof of scrolled ironwork spans.

The farmhouse interior contains a panelled staircase with closed string, carved square newel post, ball finial and turned mirror balusters, together with two original fireplace surrounds on the first floor.

The farm provided food and domestic assistance for The Grange, comprising a piggery, dairy, milking production, dry-food storage, stabling, an estate office, laundry and a farmhouse known as 'The Homestead'. Between 1910 and 1914, the 5th Lord Ashburton, an Honorary Colonel in the Hampshire Yeomanry, established the military horse exercise area on the farm for the regiment stationed there. This yard was subsequently enclosed and latterly used for grain drying and storage.

The farm remained in the Baring family until the early 1930s when Lord Ashburton sold the estate to Mr LC Wallach. In 1964 John Baring, the 7th Lord Ashburton, re-purchased it. Some buildings were demolished after a 1987 survey, including the piggery with canopy, a yard and cart shed to the north. Later twentieth-century removals included the rick yard walls and concrete silos. Twentieth-century additions include a lean-to covered yard adjacent to the dairy, a laundry, and an outbuilding west of the stores and stables; the laundry may originally have been an engine house attached to a two-storey barn or granary, and was destroyed by fire in September 2009. The five estate farms are now occupied by agricultural tenant farmers managed through the Baring family partnership, Itchen Stoke Estates. At the time of inspection, dairy and grain storing facilities had relocated elsewhere, leaving Grange Farm mostly unused.

The horse exercise area is a significant historical survival from the local yeomanry connection. The Hampshire Yeomanry originated in the late 1700s when William Pitt the Younger proposed that English counties form Volunteer Yeoman Cavalry forces for national defence. The yeomanry became the cavalry element of the Territorial Force, established in 1908 from earlier militia and volunteer units. During the First World War the Hampshire Yeomanry served on the Western Front and in Ireland. The survival of this horse exercise area is a rare national example of local landowner involvement in leading such local forces.