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

Model Farm, covered yards and flanking buildings are located approximately 40 meters south of the farmhouse. The buildings date from 1856 and were designed by William Wilkinson for the Earl of Macclesfield. They are constructed of Flemish bond brick and feature a gabled corrugated iron roof, flanked by gabled Welsh slate roofs.

The central covered yards are flanked by two loose boxes and stables, with a harness room on the left, and two roothouses that open to feeding stalls, boxes, and a piggery on the right. The structure is single-storey with a triple-gabled front. It includes a gauged brick round arch with moulded imposts for the high central entry, and gauged brick flat arches over mid-19th century sliding doors to the roothouse in the right bay, as well as over one and two-light casements in the outer bays. There is also a similar mid-19th century tall rear entrance and sliding doors to the stables and pig house in the left range.

Inside, the central 12-bay covered yard features a mid-19th century water pump and cast-iron roof trusses. The left range includes a harness room with pegs, flanked by stables for seven working horses. An observer noted in 1856 that 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 them without exposure to the sun and rain until it is required to be carted on the land."

This building is an early example of its type and is part of the original Home Farm designed by Wilkinson, who also created similar complexes at Longleat in Wiltshire and Kirtlington, north of Oxford. It received high praise from contemporaries.