Westonholme, The Bothy, Mill Cottage, Holford Barns And Attached Sawmill

Westonholme, The Bothy, Mill Cottage, Holford Barns and Attached Sawmill

A bailiff's house, sawmill and farmbuildings erected between 1852 and 1854, with the sawmill expanded in 1881. The complex was designed by E Rich, agent for the Westonbirt estate, and forms one of six "model" farmsteads erected on the estate by the mid-1850s. Home Farm was the most technologically advanced of these for its date.

The buildings are constructed in squared and coursed limestone with ashlar dressings. The upper floor of the granary range is built in rat trap bond brick. Roofs are covered in asbestos, corrugated iron, stone slate and Welsh slate.

Westonholme, The Bothy and Mill Cottage form a T-plan, with Westonholm facing north-east. The cottages are of one storey and attic with stone ashlar stacks. Westonholm presents a symmetrical 3-window range with flat stone arches over 2-pane over 2-pane sashes flanking a gabled porch with carved barge boards and round-arched doorway. The gabled half dormers contain 8-pane over 8-pane sashes. Side elevations to the cottages at the rear have 8-pane over 8-pane sashes in gabled half dormers beneath flat stone arches, with an entry and mullioned canted bay window to the right.

The sawmill range adjoins the north side of the cottages and extends in a long rectangular range to the south-west with a right-angled return forming a cartshed to the south-east. This range is of one storey facing north. At the centre is a gabled bellcote set on a wide gable with stone stacks to the rear, terminal capped piers and a keyed round window above two gauged ashlar flat-arched entries (infilled to the right). To the right is a 5-window range with a similar blocked central archway, one 4-light and four 2-light chamfered mullioned and transomed windows with corbels to an ogee cast-iron gutter. To the left of the central gable is a 2-window range with similar archway flanked by similar 4-light windows. A long 1850s range extends further to the left under the same roof with finials to stone-coped gables; the left gable end is dominated by a tall semi-circular arched entry to sliding double doors, flanked by gauged stone flat-arched entries with a lunette to the top right.

Attached to the rear of the sawmill and at right angles to the rear south-west gable of the cottages is the engine house, connected by a throughway to the mill barn. The engine house has a large semi-circular arched entry and sliding doors with segmental-arched entries to the throughway. The mill barn, which faces south, has a gabled front with a 2-storey, 3-window range featuring flat stone arches over 9-pane cast-iron windows and a semi-circular stone arch over a similar window above a flat-arched central doorway with sliding door. The mill barn is flanked by cartshed and granary ranges: 8 bays to the north-east and 6 bays to the south-west, the latter having a barn adjoining the mill barn. The north elevation has a flat arch over a doorway (with sliding doors now missing) to the barn. The cartsheds are supported by cast-iron columns to transverse beams, shaped at the ends, supporting granaries above with 2-light windows. The south elevation has flat stone arches over entries, formerly with sliding doors, flanking the mill barn. A lean-to infilled 7-bay cartshed with cast-iron columns adjoins the south-west end of the sawmill at right angles.

The mill barn and granary ranges form a T-plan and are now known as Holford Barns, having been partly converted into housing.

The interior contains iron trusses to the sawmill. Stone straight-flight steps lead to the granaries and first floor of the mill barn, which have composite iron and softwood trusses. A flywheel connected to a drive shaft runs to the engine house, and an iron crane is positioned on the first floor of the mill barn over the throughway.

The farm had a gas works in 1881. The cattle yards to the south have been demolished.