Rosebery Home Farm

Rosebery Home Farm

Dating to circa 1805, this is a substantial Gothick home farm of considerable architectural ambition. The complex comprises a farmhouse, clock tower, dovecot and associated farm buildings arranged around a courtyard, with a later court added to the rear in 1855. The buildings are constructed from coursed polished sandstone for the principal pavilions, coursed droved sandstone for the clock tower, and tooled rubble for the remainder, with broached dressings throughout.

The principal south-east elevation presents a nearly symmetrical composition dominated by a screen wall enclosing the courtyard. At the centre stands a gateway with corniced, V-jointed rusticated gatepiers surmounted by ball finials, flanked by a boarded timber two-leaf gate swept down to the centre. Flat-coped rubble walls on either side step up to pavilion fronts, each featuring a central rectangular opening glazed on the left and surmounted by a blind circular recess with a blind crenellated parapet sitting on a dentil-moulded cornice. A single-storey bothy adjoins the outer right pavilion, with a boarded timber door flanked by small windows.

The courtyard elevations showcase the complex's most distinctive features. The north-west range centres on a two-storey clock tower incorporating a dovecot. This symmetrical structure displays dividing band courses and a depressed arched pend to the centre leading to the rear court, flanked by two round-arched doorways with boarded timber doors and impost details. The first floor features a tripartite triagular-headed blind arcade with flight holes to the centre, flanked by two triangular-headed windows. A pointed arched blind opening sits at the base of the square-plan tower, flanked by a crenellated parapet. An octagonal spire rises from the tower to a ball finial and weather vane, with pairs of oval oculi to each face, alternately open and blind. Each face of the tower carries a central clock with gilded numerals. Later 19th-century farmhouse bays extend to the left of the clock tower with regular fenestration to three ground-floor bays, gabled dormers with chamfered reveals breaking the eaves, and a doorway with chamfered reveal, panelled timber door and letterbox fanlight at the re-entrant angle. A large sliding boarded timber door flanks the right bays, flanked by a window to the left and blind opening to the right.

The south-west range was rebuilt in the mid-20th century as a six-bay asymmetrical structure, with a large window to the third bay from the left, boarded timber doors in various positions, and a doorway to the farmhouse at the outer right. The north-east range is asymmetrical with five bays, featuring two-leaf boarded timber doors with stugged lintels to three bays on the left and boarded timber sliding doors to two bays on the right. The south-east range comprises two three-bay blocks of lean-to cart sheds with segmental arched openings and chamfered reveals to each bay.

The north-east elevation is asymmetrical, with a corrugated shed to the centre, a blank gabled bay to the outer right, and the bothy recessed to the left. The north-west elevation includes the rear court, with a depressed arch of pend to the centre and a window off-centre to the right of the first floor. A single-storey block with a boarded timber sliding door sits to the right, whilst a coped rubble wall advanced to the outer left corner links to a brick stable block. The rear of the farmhouse occupies the bays to the right, with a ground floor obscured by a whitewashed flat-roofed block, and gabled bays to the centre of the first floor flanked by two dormer windows breaking the eaves. A 20th-century byre has been advanced to the outer right, and two polished gatepiers flank rubble stable blocks enclosing the courtyard, with 20th-century brick byre additions. The south-west elevation is asymmetrical, featuring the three-bay rear of the farmhouse to the centre with regular fenestration at ground floor, gabled dormer windows breaking the eaves to the first-floor bays, and byre buildings adjoining to the left and right, with a corrugated iron lean-to addition advanced to the outer right.

Windows throughout are predominantly twelve-pane timber sash and case. Roofs are of grey and purple-grey slate, piended to the farmhouse and clock tower with lead ridges. Stacks are coped and shouldered at the wallhead and gablehead to the farmhouse, with gablehead stacks to the bothy, all featuring circular cans. Cast iron rainwater goods complete the external details.

Boundary walls of rubble construction with semicircular coping surround the rear garden of the farmhouse, and a rubble wall with rubble coping flanks the screen wall to the left.