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

SU69NE 4/144

SHIRBURN Model Farm, engine house and attached buildings approx.15m. SSW of farmhouse

GV II

Engine house. Date 1856 on spandrels of covered way, by William Wilkinson for the Earl of Macclesfield. Flemish bond brick with flared headers and diapering; double-gabled Welsh slate roof; central ridge stack finished in Engineering brick. Plan has covered way left of centre with sawing shed and carpenters' workshop to left and engine room, boiler house, thrashing and chaff-cutting rooms to right. 2 storeys; 4-window first floor range. Covered way has cast-iron spandrels under wall plate. Gauged-brick chamfered segmental-arch over double-entry to left: similar flat-arch over partly blocked entry to right. Similar segmental-arches over first floor casements. Interior: base and some driving-wheels and belts survive of steam-driven sawmill to left. Remains of chaff-cutting and threshing machinery to right include mid C19 twelve horse-power steam engine by Ruston (name plate). Subsidiary features; buildings attached to right and making T-plan consist of woolstore/granary over cartsheds at ends flanking central sheaf room and processing/storage block. Main front (to right): long 2-storey central block has 3 central gabled bays with chamfered segmental-arched 2-light casements above central/mid C19 sliding door: similar sliding doors in long outer bays. Flanking 5 and 4-bay cartsheds have chamfered archways and chamfered segmental-arches over horizontal sliding sashes; right gable end has external steps with bell over doorway to granary. There was a rickyard to the rear of the engine house. Wilkinson designed similar farm buildings at Longleat, Wiltshire and Kirtlington, north of Oxford. The buildings at Home Farm were highly praised, in particular "the several purposes for which steam-power is made available - viz. for thrashing the corn of the farm, cutting the chaff for the horses and cattle, crushing oats and beans, grinding corn, drawing water from a deep well to supply a cistern from which the water is conveyed by iron piping throughout all parts of the homestead, and also for sawing timber....". (Illustrated London News, December 12, 1857, pp. 584-5).

Listing NGR: SU6953497123