Courtleaze Farm Buildings And Attached Gatepiers And Rickyard Walls

COURTLEAZE FARM BUILDINGS AND ATTACHED GATEPIERS AND RICKYARD WALLS

A model farm for Coleshill House, built circa 1850–54 for the 2nd Earl of Radnor. Designed by E. W. Moore, the Earl's agent, with plans drawn by G. Lamb and construction undertaken by builders W. Pedley followed by E. Streeter. The farm has undergone 19th and 20th-century alterations and was converted in the late 20th century for the National Trust, now functioning as workshops, store rooms and offices.

The buildings are constructed in rubblestone with ashlar dressings, and red brick with some blue brick headers in Flemish bond or rat-trap bond. Stone slate roofs survive on the sheep yard buildings and workshops; elsewhere Welsh slate is used, though some has been replaced by corrugated asbestos.

The farm's layout exploits the sloping and split-level site, developing progressively from higher to lower levels east to west. At the east end stands a large rick yard with a subterranean wagon house at its north-west corner. Along the south side runs a workshop range for wheelwright, mason and sawyer. A long range extends across the west end, containing from north to south: sheds; a root and straw store with barn over; and a nag stable and gig house with bailiff's office, wool room and carpenters' workshop above (now National Trust offices). To the west lie two yards: the northern former poultry yard and the southern divided into cowyard and stable yard, each surrounded by buildings. The poultry yard's north side has a range of stables, tool store and shoeing shed, and a forge and kitchen with boys' room over. The west side contains cattle sheds fronted by yards with a fatting cattle range behind. The south side has a piggery range and straw barn with granary over, attached to the root store/barn. The piggery range forms the north side of the cowyard with pig yards facing onto it. The cowyard's west side has a bull house with a fatting cattle range behind, and the south side a range of dairy cow stalls and cow boxes with calf pens and hay house at the east end. West of the poultry and cow yards lies a sheep yard with a covered manure pit at the centre of its east side, opposite which stands a fatting sheep house with open-fronted sheds extending around the curved-cornered yard. Entrances serve the poultry yard (north-east corner with gatepiers on the roadside attached to rickyard walls), the stable yard (south) and the sheep yard (south-west corner). Food was conveyed from the main root store/barn to the animals via a tram system utilising the sloping ground.

Stone-built farm buildings feature quoins, chamfered quoined surrounds to openings, windows with chamfered mullions and small-pane glazing, moulded kneelers, stone copings with finials and stone ridges. Brick buildings have segmental brick-arched openings. Open-fronted sheds are supported on iron columns set on chamfered padstones.

The rickyard walls stand approximately 2 metres high with stone coping. Two entrances on the east side have walls that curve inward, ending in brick quoins. Steps descend to the lower-level road at the south-west corner and into the lower poultry yard at the north-west corner. The workshop range is partly open-fronted. The subterranean wagon house contains five brick round-arched entrances serving barrel-vaulted chambers, with lean-to sheds against the west side. The root store/barn features slit vents in its north gable, board doors and two- or three-light windows on east and west sides, an attached brick engine house in rat-trap bond on the east side, and a louvred octagonal turret with swept metal spire and weather vane. The straw barn/granary is similarly detailed. The nag stable and gig house with office/workshop over follows the same style, though now fitted with late 20th-century glazed doors and a glass-roofed ridge louvre. It has a brick stack and stone stack, and on its south (road-facing) side three three-light windows with hoodmoulds. The stable range on the north side of the poultry yard may be older, possibly surviving from an 18th-century model farm on the site. Built of rubblestone with brick dressings, it comprises four bays flanked by single-storey wings with a taller central gabled bay containing an attic. Its elevation alternates doors and windows; the wings have ridge louvres and there are two ashlar stacks. The adjoining range to the east formerly had open-fronted tool shed and shoeing bays, now enclosed with 20th-century horizontal boarding, doors and windows. The former forge and kitchen block is of brick in Flemish bond with stone to its more visible rear and right return elevations. It has a blocked door and window on the left, a door on the right and a central ashlar ridge stack. The cattle shed yards on the west side of the poultry yard are brick-walled with open-fronted sheds. The piggery range, in brick with rat-trap bond, has glass-roofed ridge louvres. Its six pig yards on the south side feature low round-topped brick walls with round-arched entries into boxes behind. The dairy cow range, also brick with a similar ridge louvre, shows stone on its more visible south (road-facing) side with two-light windows and a central gabled bay. Gateways into the poultry yard, stable yard and sheep yard have square ashlar piers with chamfered details, strings, moulded pyramidal capstones and board gates. In the sheep yard, the covered manure pit has a superstructure of a low brick wall on a stone plinth carrying iron columns supporting a hipped roof. Behind it, the fatting cattle boxes range has a continuous ridge louvre. The sheep fatting house comprises three bays with single-storey wings flanking a central two-storey gabled bay. Some sections of the originally open-fronted attached sheds have been walled across.

Interior features include traces of tramways. Roofs are fitted with wooden braced king-post trusses, except for the root store/barn which has collared queen-post trusses with posts set well apart for good clearance. Some machinery gearing survives in the barn.

Advanced features of this model farm include the large pig-fattening unit designed with central feeding access; extensive provision for sheep; steam boilers for feed preparation; a covered midden; a tramway system with turntable unit linking side feed passages to the central store; slatted flooring originally in the fatting sheep house; and ventilation of the granary through wall gratings.