Home Farm Buildings

A range of farm buildings dating to 1868, constructed for the Birdsall Estate. The buildings are primarily limestone ashlar with Welsh slate, pantile, and French tile roofs. The main north-facing range contains a barn to the left, a central cross wing housing offices, and an implement shed to the right. Behind this spinal range are six parallel ranges, comprising four covered foldyards and two storage sheds, set at a right angle. To the left of these is a dairy.

The yard-facing facade of the barn has two storeys and three first-floor openings. It includes a stable door and fixed window beneath an elliptical arch, a fixed window beneath a keyed lintel, and tall double doors beneath an elliptical arch. The first floor has two pitching doors and a slatted opening. The central section projects with a gable to the yard, featuring two first-floor windows and a cruciform vent to the gable end. The left return has a brick lean-to extension of no special interest, while the right return features two board doors, the right one under a canted stone arch, with fixed windows throughout. The implement shed is two storeys high, with nine first-floor windows and a keyed elliptical arch with a double door flanked by fixed windows. The centre exhibits five elliptical arches on square piers while the right side features a board door and a blocked window. The first floor has boarded and slatted openings with divided overlights.

The facade to Salents Lane exhibits six gable ends, with the second, fourth, and fifth being taller and wider, all featuring cruciform vents. The first bay has a rounded corner with an overhang and a board door with a fixed window. The second bay features double doors flanked by fixed windows beneath elliptical arches and a small fixed window with a stone lintel. The third bay has a wide opening now containing 20th-century sliding doors, flanked by fixed windows. The fourth bay displays an elliptical arch, also with 20th-century sliding doors, and an elliptical-arched window to the right. The fifth bay mirrors the fourth. The sixth bay contains a doorway with a stone lintel, also with 20th-century sliding doors. The single-storey dairy, situated to the extreme right, has a board door, a 20th-century casement, and two sliding doors, with a hipped roof to the left.

These buildings were constructed with funds from the 1868 "Improvement Fund," which also financed a major drainage scheme for the Birdsall Estate. The covered foldyard represents an early example of a type that became common by the end of the century, indicative of an early stage in the industrialization of farming.