Piggery, The Glen

The Piggery at The Glen, built around 1854 with later 19th century additions, is a single-storey and attic structure designed in a picturesque pavilion style, featuring a dovecote tower. It is set into a hillside and constructed from random and coursed whinstone rubble, with yellow sandstone ashlar quoins and dressings. The dovecote tower has polished yellow sandstone ashlar quoins and a moulded corbel. The roof is timber-bracketed with gables on the wings.

On the northeast elevation, there is a wide central bay that originally had an entrance, now missing its door or gate, framed by an ashlar surround. The flanking walls are blind and rise into a gabled end with a bracketed timber roof. The advanced dovecote tower, supported by a moulded corbel, features a gable-ended timber dovecote with five flight holes on the front and timbered sides, topped with a timber bracketed roof and setback ball finials (the front finial is now missing). The blind wing walls on either side of the entrance lead to single-storey pavilion-style bays with a high-set bipartite window in the gablehead. There is an arched hole below the left wing window, possibly for hens or ventilation.

The southwest and northwest elevations have blind side walls that are set into the hillside gradient, while the rear elevation is low with a partially collapsed slate roof. Much of the original glazing is lost, but one six-pane window in a timber side-hung casement remains, along with a pair of large three-pane cast-iron roof lights on the principal elevation. The pitched slate roof, which has timber brackets (formerly painted green) and overhanging eaves instead of rainwater goods, is partially missing at the rear, and features large anchor-shaped ventilators along the rear roofline of the wings. The dovecote is topped with ball finials on squared bases, although the front finial is now missing.

Inside, there is an open central entrance that likely had a timber gate or door, leading to a through passage. Flanking the passage are six high brick pen walls, stepped in three pairs, which are whitewashed and have trough feeders built into the end walls. Brick piers at the corners support the attic storey. The outer walls of the sty are also rubble and whitewashed, with sloped flagstone floors and a timber boarded ceiling beneath the dovecote.