Model Farm, Covered Yards And Flanking Buildings Approximately 40 Metres South Of Farmhouse

SHIRBURN SU69NE 4/143 Model Farm, covered yards and flanking buildings approx. 40m. S of farmhouse

GV II

Covered yards, stables and feeding boxes. Datestone 1856, by William Wilkinson for the Earl of Macclesfield. Flemish bond brick; gabled corrugated iron roof flanked by gabled Welsh slate roofs. Central covered yards flanked by 2 looseboxes and stables with harness room on left, and 2 roothouses opening to feeding stalls, boxes and piggery on right. One storey; triple-gabled front. Gauged brick round-arch with moulded imposts to high central entry. Gauged brick flat-arch over mid C19 sliding door to roothouse in right bay; similar arches over one and 2-light casements in outer bays. Similar mid C19 tall rear entrance and sliding doors to stables and pig house in left range. Interior: central 12-bay covered yard has mid C19 water pump and cast-iron roof trusses. Left range has harness room with pegs flanked by stables for 7 working horses each. An observer remarked in 1856 the the "covered yards ...... afford dry and healthy accommodation for cattle, and also receptacles for the manure which is thrown into them for the stables, piggeries, and feeding stalls adjoining. The manure is allowed to accumulate in then without exposure to the sun and rain until it is required to be carted on the land." This is an early example of such a building and forms part of the original Home Farm by Wilkinson, who designed similar complexes at Longeat, Wiltshire, and Kirtlington, north of Oxford. It was highly praised by contemporaries. (Illustrated London News, December 12, 1857, pp. 584-5).

Listing NGR: SU6956897104