Model Farm, Engine House And Attached Buildings Approximately 15 Metres South South West Of Farmhouse

This is a model farm, engine house, and attached buildings, constructed in 1856 by William Wilkinson for the Earl of Macclesfield. The complex is located approximately 15 metres south-south-west of the farmhouse. The engine house is built of Flemish bond brick with flared headers and diapering, featuring a double-gabled Welsh slate roof and a central ridge stack finished in engineering brick. The plan includes a covered way, a sawing shed, a carpenters' workshop, an engine room, a boiler house, thrashing and chaff-cutting rooms, and associated buildings arranged in a T-plan.

The two-storey engine house has a four-window first-floor range. The covered way has cast-iron spandrels beneath a wall plate. The main façade has a gauged-brick, chamfered segmental-arch over a double entry to the left and a similar flat arch over a partly blocked entry to the right. Similar segmental arches are above the first-floor casements.

Inside, remains of the steam-driven sawmill, including the base and some driving-wheels and belts, survive to the left. Remains of chaff-cutting and threshing machinery to the right include a mid-19th century twelve horsepower steam engine by Ruston, identifiable by its name plate. Attached buildings to the right incorporate a woolstore/granary over cartsheds at each end, flanking a central sheaf room and a processing/storage block. The main front features a long, two-storey central block with three central gabled bays, incorporating chamfered segmental-arched two-light casements above a mid-19th century sliding door in the centre and similar sliding doors in the outer bays. Flanking cartsheds have chamfered archways and segmental arches over horizontal sliding sashes. The right gable end has external steps leading to a bell over a doorway to the granary. A reyard was formerly located at the rear of the engine house.

Wilkinson also designed farm buildings at Longleat, Wiltshire, and Kirtlington, north of Oxford. Contemporary accounts praised the use of steam power for various purposes, including threshing corn, cutting chaff, crushing oats and beans, grinding corn, supplying water via iron piping throughout the homestead, and sawing timber.