Dairy About 10 Metres North of Park Farmhouse

Dairy about 10 metres north of Park Farmhouse

This dairy stands on the home farm of Somerhill, now part of the Hadlow Estate. It dates from approximately 1850 and is of unknown authorship. The building is of framed construction on brick footings, with a tiled roof featuring bands of scalloped tiles and fleur de lis crested ridge tiles, and a brick stack.

The dairy forms part of a designed Victorian farmstead with other buildings in matching style. The layout of the group is picturesquely irregular, organized to be both attractive and functional. The dairy is the first building encountered on the approach to the farm and receives the most elaborate treatment. It stands north of and below the farmhouse, to which it relates.

The building is T-plan, with a two-room main block roofed on an east-west axis running at right angles to the farm lane, and an axial stack. A third room occupies a crosswing at the west end, which has a large west-facing porch. This porch was probably the entrance for visitors from Somerhill. A plainer entrance on the south side of the main block faces the rear door of the farmhouse.

The exterior is extremely pretty and very intact. The gabled roofs have deep eaves and fancy cusped moulded bargeboards. The axial stack has vertical rib decoration to the shaft, and a louvred ventilation shaft stands to the east of the stack, crowned with a tiled roof and finial. The timber framing includes diagonal braces with raised plaster in the infill panels.

The west elevation is symmetrical and dominated by a showy gabled porch at its centre. The outer doorway is flanked by arched open panels in the framing with trefoil-pierced spandrels. The framing of the porch side walls is divided into three tiers: cross-braced panels above the footings, timber panels pierced with pointed quatrefoils in the next tier, and a row of open shouldered arches in the tier below the eaves. The original front door sits in a moulded frame, with original floor tiling.

The south side shows the gable end of the crosswing to the left and the main block to the right. The crosswing has a large three-light casement window with cast iron casements, high transoms, and diagonal iron glazing bars with decorated stamped bosses at intersections. An original door enters the main block alongside the crosswing. The crosswing is otherwise blind on this side, with tall cross-braced panels in the framing. The north elevation has a pair of two-light cast iron transomed windows matching those on the south. The gable end of the crosswing projects as a bay with a hipped roof and three similar two-light transomed windows, plus one-light windows to the returns. The rear east elevation is of brick; the gable has fancy bargeboards, but the four-light window is plainer than the others, with square leaded panes and original window furniture.

The interior is very complete, retaining original tiling, canted roofs, and marble shelves.

The design makes free use of elements drawn from traditional buildings of the 17th century. This is a remarkably attractive and well-preserved building.