Home Farm, Farmbuildings

This exceptional range of farm buildings was built in 1900–01 by the architect William Huckvale for Charles Rothschild. The complex is constructed of coursed rock-faced limestone, occasionally snecked, with ashlar limestone dressings, three stone chimney stacks, and thatched coverings to hipped and half-hipped roofs. It is designed in the Vernacular Revival style.

The buildings are arranged in a courtyard plan around a manure yard. A U-shaped range forms the north, east, and south sides, with linking walls, a dovecote, and a storage building on the west side.

The Main Ranges

The L-shaped north and south wings are single storey, each of six bays. Their thatched roofs each have two louvred ventilators with thatched pyramidal caps. These wings link to the main east range at their eastern ends.

The east range has storied square pavilion-like end sections with pyramidal roofs. Lower single storey mid-sections link the pavilions to the taller three-part central section. This central section has two outer bays and a centre bay with a half-hipped gable to both elevations, each with loft doors set below a three-light chamfer mullioned window. Above the gables, the main ridge has a louvred ventilation lantern with a pyramidal thatched roof and a weathervane.

Courtyard Elevations

The courtyard-facing elevations contain the majority of the door and window openings. The north wing has five two-light windows and a single split door, and was formerly a cowhouse. The south wing is similarly detailed but has a split door and a two-light window opening to each of five loose boxes.

The central east range has a single door and a three-light window to each of the single storey parts flanking the central range. The central range itself has a central three-light window below a pair of loft doors, flanked by doorways to either side, with a three-light window to the north side, a two-light window to the south side, and a further split door to its right.

Rear Elevations

The rear elevations of the north and south wings each have two two-light mullioned windows, with their attached pavilion walls having one and two such windows respectively. Bay divisions are delineated by shallow sloping buttresses, as are the different sections of the rear elevation to the east range.

The end pavilions have pyramidal thatched roofs and a pair of loft doors to the east wall above a central doorway. The lower mid-section to the north end has a single two-light window, with the taller central flanking bays each having a two-light mullioned eyebrow dormer. To the left of the half-hipped central gable is an attached tapered square stone chimney which rises through the eaves. A similar but lower chimney is located to the left side of the east pavilion.

Dovecote and Western Range

To the west side of the courtyard is the combined dovecote and storage building with its flanking walls. This faces the centre of the east range and is square on plan, with angle buttresses to the corners and doorways to the centre of its east and west walls. The north and south walls each have a shallow four-light mullioned window, the former set below a wedge dormer window opening to the dovecote loft. The pyramidal thatched roof has a thatched hood above the entrance holes and perches of the dovecote.

All window openings throughout the complex have leaded lights within iron casements. Either side of the dovecote are low enclosure walls which link it to the north and south wings and incorporate gateways to the yard. The yard is paved in limestone setts and has drainage grilles and a central manure midden enclosed within a stone wall.

Interiors

The south wing comprises a series of loose boxes, behind which is a service passage accessed from a door in the west gable. This has feed hatches with sliding doors to the inner wall and leads to a feed preparation area and workshop area within the south pavilion, originally with powered fixed machinery and still retaining a metal storage tank. There is a fixed ladder access to the loft area above.

The north wing interior has been altered to accommodate later 20th-century cattle stalls but retains the rear service passage. There is a separate room to the west end with a hearth and storage cupboards, and an external door to the west gable.

The east range has a series of compartments accessed from five doorways. Three of these are located within the lofted central area and lead into former stable areas with some surviving stall partitions and manger racks. In this area is a separate tack room with a hearth set at an angle, match boarded partitions with shelf brackets, and benching with a slot for drive belting which aligns with a slot in the ceiling through which belting extended into the loft floor above. There is an in-situ water pump below the bench, thought to have formed part of the building's water supply provided by the mill and the water tower.

The loft floors above the central and pavilion ranges are linked by open timber walkways which extend over the stable areas in the single storey mid sections of the east range. The lofts have small metal cranes adjacent to the loft doors and retain evidence of the belt drives for powered processing machinery in the form of a low boarded guard enclosure within the south bay of the tall central section and a shaft box for line shafting by a doorway at the north end. The central part of the loft also has an elaborate timber framework leading from a ground floor partitioned area to the ventilation lantern on the ridge.

The dovecote has an open ground floor area with doors to front and rear wall, and match-boarded wall and ceiling surfaces. There is ladder access to the dovecote loft, which retains some low level nesting boxes.

Historical Context

The Home Farmbuildings form an important component of the new estate developed by Lord Rothschild at the behest of his son, Nathaniel Charles, and designed by the architect William Huckvale (1847–1936). Huckvale was required to design not only a house but also an entire complement of estate buildings. The Rothschilds also became the first landowners in the country to provide their tenants with the luxury of both running filtered water and electricity, the latter generated by turbines housed in a former water mill below the village on the River Nene, from where water was pumped to a water tower and so to the estate buildings. Each cottage had a bath house and was placed in a large garden planted with a lilac, a laburnum, and fruit trees.

Huckvale worked mainly for the Rothschilds and designed a number of buildings for their Tring Park and Aston Clinton estates. The quality of his work is reflected in the 42 listed buildings he already has to his name: 13 in Tring and 29 on the Ashton Estate.

The Home Farm, with its associated dairy, cartshed, and cowman's cottage, formed a showpiece ensemble—a fusion of ferme ornée and model farm sited in the picturesque setting of a woodland clearing. It has long since ceased to function as a working unit and is now used mostly for storage purposes.

The building is of exceptional architectural interest for the high quality of its design, which reflects the vernacular building traditions of the region, and for the level of craftsmanship evident in the working of the materials chosen for its construction. It is of special historic interest as a key element of a newly created model estate developed by the internationally significant Rothschild family during a period of agricultural depression which had signalled the end of farmstead development elsewhere in England. Home Farm is exceptionally complete, having suffered no external alteration, changes in building materials or extension, having retained evidence of the original interior fixtures and fittings, and with little significant change to its woodland clearing setting. It has high group significance as part of the development of the Ashton estate's buildings, which share a common architectural vocabulary and the same palette of building materials, all designed for the Rothschild family by William Huckvale.