Wappingthorn Farm Dairy Buildings, Including Silo Towers, Linking Wall And Circular Dairy

Wappingthorn Farm Dairy Buildings, designed in 1929-30 by Maxwell Ayrton for Sir Arthur Howard, represent a model dairy farm with later 20th-century alterations. They are remarkable for the architectural use of concrete, rather than solely for structural purposes. The buildings are constructed of brown brick in header or English bond, complemented by concrete towers, a linking wall, and columns, with tiled roofs (some originally thatched). The majority of the buildings are one storey in height, featuring mainly pivoting, metal multipane casement windows.

The complex comprises a roughly rectangular arrangement of cow sheds, milking parlours, silo towers linked by a wall, an open-fronted barn, and a circular dairy attached to the west. The circular dairy is a single-storey building of header bond brickwork, surrounded by eight-foot high, rust-coloured aggregate columns, one foot in diameter at the base and one foot six inches at the head, with additional columns linking the block. The roof is conical, originally thatched but later replaced with concrete Broseley tiles, surmounted by an octagonal tiled lantern with wooden louvres. Modern uPVC casements now occupy the original windows. A formerly open linking block has been closed in with stretcher bond brickwork.

The remaining structures include concrete silo towers and a linking wall in the south front, and a series of concrete columns supporting an open-fronted barn to the northwest. The silo towers, constructed using a well-compacted 1:2:2 concrete mix with evidence of two-foot-by-six-inch lifts, are tall, roughly octagonal, tapering structures with ventilation openings at the top and conical tiled roofs with metal finials. The central linking concrete wall has a parapet with half-round ridge tiles set in concrete and includes a clock face with a gabled, weather-protected canopy, decorative half-round ridge tiles on either side, and a wide entrance with a tiled canopy.

Inside the dairy, original white tiles with a blue tiled band remain, along with the original slate shelf. The interior of other areas, apart from the milking parlour to the southwest, was not inspected.

These buildings are a rare example of an Inter-War model dairy farm, notable for their pioneering architectural use of concrete by the noted architect Maxwell Ayrton.