Barn At Bloxham Grove Farm

Barn at Bloxham Grove Farm, Bloxham

This is a six-bay barn of squared and coursed marlstone with a Welsh slate roof and corrugated asbestos cladding to the rear. The building may date from the 17th or 18th century in origin but was substantially refurbished and extended to the west in 1826, as recorded by a datestone inscribed in the west gable. The stone-coped gables feature stone ball finials and kneelers, with the west gable bearing the date 1826. The east gable has a plain design with wider coping stones. A blue brick boiler chimney from the 19th or early 20th century stands over bay six, though it has been reduced in height.

The barn runs along the north side of the courtyard at Bloxham Grove Farm. The main part features opposed threshing doorways, both original narrow openings, with the rear one partially blocked. A vertical ventilation slit appears in the front right-hand wall with evidence of a similar opening in the front left-hand wall. Bays five and six each have a plank door with a cast iron window to the right, with no internal communication between them. The west gable includes a tall double loft door below a flat limestone arch with keystone, flanked by cast iron windows beneath limestone segmental arches. The rear façade shows a possibly inserted door, a 19th-century round-top cast iron window below a brick semicircular arch, and evidence of a removed outshot. The east gable has a blocked personnel door.

The interior of the main body remains open to the roof with tie beam roof trusses featuring combined raking struts and iron tie rods. The principal rafters are halved and bolted at the apex, with a single pair of back purlins. This roof structure is probably early 19th century, contemporary with the datestone. An on-edge stone threshing floor is present, with a candle hole to the right of the front threshing door. A stone and brick workshop was inserted, possibly in the late 19th century, into bays four and five with a loft above. Bay six contains a ground-floor engine room with a late 19th or early 20th-century horizontal steam engine connected to and driving a first-floor mill wheel. The mill wheel is fed by two hoppers and supported on a pair of cast iron columns. A hearth and flue for the boiler are present. The power take-off drove belts to the outside rear of the barn and to a hoist and grain handling machinery on the first floor and in the attic above. A segmental brick arched doorway with a well below leads to the outshot, which previously housed the boiler for the steam engine.

The Victoria County History suggests that Bloxham Grove may occupy the site of a lodge conveyed in 1528 with the warren by Edward Fiennes to James Merynge on a repairing lease. Around 1797, the Old Farm of 204 acres and the New Farm of 147 acres at this location were purchased and united by George Warriner (I), a purchase coinciding with the enclosure of the parish's open fields in 1794 and 1802, which created the modern agricultural landscape. His son George Warriner (II) was an improving farmer whose activities were noted by Arthur Young when he reported on agriculture in Oxfordshire in 1809 (published in 1813; his farming journals are held in the Warwick County Record Office, CR 1635/122-6). Evidence of this progressive approach includes Warriner's purchase of threshing and winnowing machines mentioned in an inventory of 1813 and referenced in Young's 1813 publication, page 86, along with five ploughs. The alterations made to the barn in 1826 were likely made to accommodate new crop-processing machinery including the steam engine made by Lampitts of Banbury. Over the next decade or two, further modifications followed with the installation of steam power. It may be significant that in 1841 Warriner's nephew Henry (1819-1902), an engineer who was also employed with his brother George to manage the farm, built and launched 'The Firefly', an experimental steam launch. The Warriners farmed Bloxham Grove until the late 19th century and owned the farm until 1916. Later farm buildings constructed beyond the older buildings have contributed to their preservation.

Although the boiler has been removed, the original engine has been replaced by a late 19th or early 20th-century example, and the chimney reduced in height, the building and its mechanical fittings and fixtures generally survive in a remarkably complete condition. The barn has group value with the Grade II listed brewhouse and laundry.