Parkgate Farm Farmhouse and attached Shippon

Parkgate Farm Farmhouse and attached Shippon

Parkgate Farm is a tall L-plan farmhouse in simple Gothic style, comprising two storeys and attics with rear ranges that link at right angles to an adjoining shippon. The farmhouse is constructed of local rubble stone with freestone dressings under steeply pitched slate roofs with stone chimney stacks and wide boarded eaves.

The Farmhouse

The front elevation presents an asymmetrical and stepped design across three bays with chamfered angles. The left side features an advanced gable of a cross-wing. At the centre stands a tall two-storey porch with a saddleback roof, positioned in the angle where the two main ranges meet. To the right is the main range, set further back and topped with a half-hipped dormer.

The windows are narrow lights with sash glazing, arranged either paired or singly and set in stone surrounds. The central entrance has a shouldered stone lintel and a recessed half-glazed panelled door, with a single light above it also set in a shouldered lintel. Single lights appear to the north side of the porch. The outer bays have paired lights to the ground floor with shouldered lintels and round-headed lights to the first floor, whilst the attic storey features single round-headed lights. A roundel appears in the left gable apex, and there is a cellar window.

The north gable end of the main range carries a single window with similar detailing to the front elevation. The south side of the cross-wing has a half-hipped attic dormer to its centre with two round-headed lights flanking it on the first floor. The ground floor features a central bow window with a conical roof and round-headed sash lights. To its left stands a single-storey range with a brick stack and a late twentieth-century window, linking to a two-storey single-window block with a hipped roof and paired lights. At right angles is another single-storey linking range adjoining the shippon.

Both linking ranges have red brick lean-to arched passages on their north side, formerly continued along the rear wall of the house. These passages, together with a brick wall, form a small rear yard. The passages are whitewashed with boarded doors and stone flagged floors. Embedded in the brick wall is an iron panel inscribed 'Ellis & Jones, Plumber of Chester, 1863'. The rear (west) side of the house has a two-storey rendered lean-to to the right and a single-storey brick lean-to to the left with a round-arched sash window to its north side.

The Shippon

The shippon is a roughly square-plan single-storey structure facing east, with a shallow hipped roof, ridge ventilator with gablets, overhanging eaves and apex finials. The symmetrical seven-bay front features four doorways in the first, third, fifth and seventh bays from the left. These are boarded doors in chamfered stone surrounds with segmental heads, each topped by a roundel, now glazed.

The centre of the front is marked by a half-hipped gablet with a roundel, beneath which sits a tall three-light stone mullioned window with round-headed lights and metal-framed glazing. The second and sixth bays have similar two-light windows. A boarded hatch with a segmental head is positioned low down near the left end.

Half-hipped gablets with roundels are positioned at the centres of the north and south gable ends. The former has a lean-to cartshed below with a central opening under a gablet, now obscured by a timber addition. A further lean-to extends to the right of the north end.

To the rear is a further block with a half-hipped roof and a wide segmental-arched opening to its centre, set in a stone surround with double doors and a roundel above.

The shippon's interior is whitewashed with a concrete floor. Cattle stalls line the sides, with concrete partitions to the left and metal partitions to the right. Two planked doors lead into the rear block. A door opens to the south end, with a blocked segmental-headed opening to its left. There is no access from the shippon to the house.

The shippon has a complex five-bay queen-strut roof structure. A wide entrance with a timber lintel and double boarded doors opens to the east front.