Description

SP 93 SE WOBURN WOBURN PARK
3/187 NE block of Bloomsbury
23.1.61 Stud, formerly Sheep
Shearing House in Park
Farm Complex
GV II
Former sheep shearing house belonging to Park Farm, the model farm designed
1795 (completed 1797) by Robert Salmon, resident architect and 'mechanist' to
the estate, for Francis 5th Duke of Bedford. Reworked c.1826 by William Root.
Mottled brick with slate roofs. Single-storeyed principal block is long and
rectangular with main elevation facing W. Projecting block and walled yard to
rear. Rustic Neo-classical style. W elevation: symmetrical. Central
projecting pediment on 4 freestanding Tuscan columns forms a broad portico.
Portico shelters central 4-light window, panelled door with glazed top panels
to LH, and 2-light window to RH replacing another doorway. Pediment contains
round-arched window. Flanking wings each have 3 2-light windows and semi-
circular ends. Windows are C20 replacements with plain glazing bars, the
earlier ones having ornamental geometric glazing-bars. Brick ridge stacks to
LH wing and to pediment block. Deep eaves and verges with moulded timber
cornices. The 5th Duke was deeply interested in estate management and
agricultural developments and Park Farm was intended as a place to demonstrate
new agricultural technology. The sheep shearing house can be seen in its
original form in George Garrard's depiction of the annual Woburn Sheep Shearing
(painting of 1804, engraved 1811).
Bedfordshire Record Office: R Box 818 bundle 18/23, plans and elevations of
"present and proposed" Sheep Shearing House, signed William Root, dated August
1826; J M Robinson, "Farming ona Princely Scale: Estate buildings of the 5th
and 6th Dukes of Bedford at Woburn 1787-1839", Architectural Review November
1976, pp 276-279.

Listing NGR: SP9601233271

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26407840

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  The Listed Buildings and Other Principal Structures at the Royal Gunpowder Mills Waltham Abbey
• 
  Suffolk: East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  For the Record