Farmstead complex to NW of The Grange Farmhouse including walled poultry enclosure to NE

Farmstead Complex to Northwest of The Grange Farmhouse

This is an impressive complex of mainly 18th-century farm buildings forming an enclosure on the southwest, northwest, and northeast sides of a large farmyard. The complex comprises a stable with farmhands' accommodation above, two large barns, two cow-houses, an open-fronted shelter shed, and a poultry enclosure with duckpond. The buildings are constructed of coursed sandstone rubble with roofs mostly of blue slate, though part has been replaced with corrugated sheet.

The farmyard layout descends a gentle slope toward the northeast. The southwest range contains the stable and one barn side by side; the northwest range comprises the second barn at right-angles to the first, a two-storey cow-house with a chaff loft above, and a lofted single-storey cow-house. The shelter shed closes off the northeast end, with the poultry enclosure integral to its rear. The two-and-a-half-storey stable, both barns, and the storeyed cow-house are all the same height.

The Southwest Range

The most distinctive feature is a very unusual roofed external staircase providing access to the first floor of the stable. This covers the junction between barn and stable, with steps mounting from right to left and protected by a coped parapet and a roof carried down and supported by five chamfered wooden posts mounted on the parapet. There is an added lean-to in the angle to the left, beside which is a doorway to the ground floor. Above the lean-to is a square two-light opening with internal wooden shutters. The gable wall has similar openings to each of its three floors. All these openings have flat-arched heads with gauged rubble voussoirs and slightly raised keystones.

The barn to the right has an almost-semicircular arched wagon doorway in the centre, with one tall slit-breather on either side. At right-angles to the barn's right end stands the barn of the northwest range, which has a similar wagon doorway and one slit-breather to the right.

The Northwest Range

Adjoining this barn is a two-storey cow-house (the upper floor a chaff loft), marked at its junction by a vertical joint. It has one doorway at the junction, another in the centre, and a third opening beyond, all with board doors and keyed flat-arched heads matching those in the stable. Above the ground floor are two slit-breathers, and the building has a corrugated sheet roof. Continuing without a vertical joint is a single-storey but lofted cow-shed with a small window and two doorways, all segmental-headed. Its gable-end has three small openings at ground floor level and a segmental-headed loft opening in the gable.

The Shelter Shed and Poultry Enclosure

Attached at right-angles to the right end of the front is the shelter shed, a long, low structure with a pitched roof and an eight-bay colonnade of plain wooden posts with a wallplate supporting the front ends of bolted kingpost trusses. At its junction with the cow-house, a segmental-arched doorway with two steps down through the rear wall leads to the poultry enclosure. The rear wall of the shelter shed has a one-course band above a very low basement containing five small square openings for the birds. The other three sides of this grassed area, which contains a duckpond, are enclosed by rubble walls approximately two metres high.

Interior Details and Roof Structures

The room at first-floor level of the stable has plastered walls. The attic above contains two open principal-rafter trusses with arched collars. Set in its rear wall (the gable-end of the barn) is a carved plaque with a primitively decorated panel bearing the initials "T" and "E" and the date "17[0?]2".

Both barns have strutted principal-rafter roof trusses; that in the southwest range has added collars. Both barns have wagon doorways in their rear walls matching those at the front. The barn in the northwest range, which crosses the end of the other barn, has a cross-gable on the northwest side of the bay at that end.

Historical Context

The accommodation afforded by these buildings, particularly the barns, appears to be far greater than would be required for this farm alone, though the reason for this is not known.