Yew Tree Farmhouse, attached outbuildings, garden walls and sculptures, Crosby Ravensworth, Cumbria

Description

NY 61 NW
1254/5/10005

CROSBY RAVENSWORTH
REAGIL
Yew Tree Farmhouse, attached outbuildings, garden walls and sculptures

II
Farmhouse and attached outbuildings, garden walls and sculpture. Early C18, early C19 and c.1837 alterations and additions. House and outbuildings of coursed rubble sandstone, with extensive later render with ridge stacks and Westmorland slate roof coverings, laid to diminishing courses. Garden walls with rubble outer faces and coursed, squared work, ashlar work and carved work to inner faces.

PLAN: T-shaped building complex, with early through passage plan house to east, extending north- south, with C19 additions to the west and south. Attached outbuildings to north and east of house. Attached garden walls and sculpture encloses terraced garden to south.

HOUSE AND ATTACHED OUTBUILDINGS EAST ELEVATION: Rendered linear main range with two storey house forming south part, extended to the south and west. Multi-function outbuilding forms north part, and a lofted outbuilding an eastern extension. House with off-centre doorway, with flanking window openings to both floors, all openings with painted raised surrounds. Further right, an enlarged fire window, and beyond that, a plain doorway, formerly the common entrance to a through passage. Window frames are mainly sashes, some two over two pane sashes, and one opening, to the right of the door lengthened with a C20 glazing bar frame. Attached outbuilding to north of five bays with tall threshing doorway, and cowhouse part further north with arched doorway, boarded loft door, various slit vents and an enlarged window with C20 frame. Attached outbuilding to south end of house extends eastwards with wide central doorway below rough arched head, and two small loft openings.

SOUTH ELEVATION: east C19 extension to house with central doorway with massive stone surround and lintel, and now with C20 glazed door .Above, two over two pane window within painted raised surround . Stone stack to west gable. South extension extends into garden and is apparently truncated, now with sloping C20 sheeted roof. Apparently built to complement adjacent garden structures, and built of well-finished coursed, squared and v-jointed rusticated masonry. Blind arcade of niches to upper part of west wall. Rear wall of outbuilding to south end of house with steps to loft door in east gable. Extending from south side wall, attached garden structure, that to left supporting urns and sculptures of reclining lions, that to the right with an inset relief panel of a female figure, flanked by piers supporting urns.

WEST ELEVATION: Elongated gable sloping northwards , incorporating rear offshut to C19 addition with two ground floor openings and a small light to the offshut garret.

INTERIORS: HOUSE PART: early range to east below four-bay roof with collar and tie beam trusses, the collars lap-dovetailed. Double purlin roof with diagonally-set ridge beam. South end remodelled in C19, and aligned east-west with extension. North end, formerly accessed via through passage, with C18 jowelled hearth now blocked and enclosed by C20 partition. Exposed chamfered and stopped oak spine beam. Oak joists. Heck wall to west of hearth defines access passage to blocked doorway from cross-passage to north .Shaped oak lintel to passage, and small window to west wall, formerly outer wall of early house, later enclosed within C19 offshut. Fielded six-panel door to entrance to offshut passage within architrave surround. Extension to west end forms large single room with two doorways to north wall both with fielded six-panel doors. West door gives access to small kitchen with corner hearth. East door gives access to offshut passage and stair. Plain stick baluster winder stair gives access to three first-floor bedrooms with contemporary hearths and one small garret above offshut .

ATTACHED OUTBUILDINGS: north range of five bays with tie-beam trusses. South part full-height, with stone threshing floor and single winnowing door to west wall and vertically boarded double doors to east wall. Further west, two bay cow house with overloft. Interior of outbuilding to east of house not inspected.

ATTACHED GARDEN WALLS AND SCULPTURE: rubble sandstone walls of varying heights between 1 and 2 metres enclose terraced garden to south of house, approximately 88 metres x 55 metres. The inner faces of the walls include areas of ashlar masonry, vertical ashlar slabs, shallow buttresses and projecting platforms and plinths for an eclectic collection of garden sculptures, including standing and recumbent human figures, dogs, lions, various urns, finials and pedestals. The walling includes a basket-arched stone doorway to the northern perimeter (to the west of the house) and a flat topped doorway with flagstone lintel to the south wall. Attached to the south wall and extending into the garden, a tall retaining wall incorporating a flight of steps to an upper level, three recessed bays and a cross-wall at its northern end with ashlar pedestals supporting statues. To the south west corner a raised platform enclosed by retaining walls bearing sculpture. The west boundary wall is of varying profile, indenting into the garden area with buttresses, flights of steps and flanking walls carrying items of sculpture. The wall terminates at a narrow access avenue flanked by the house north wall, with statuary on both sides. The quality of the interior faces of the walling, incorporating niches, buttresses, steps and recesses for now missing oil paintings by Bland, contrasts astonishingly with the plain vernacular character of the outward elevations. Forming part of the interior walling are a great many of Brand's sculptures. The walls and sculptures form part of a garden which also includes two garden structures (qv) which together with the house, attached outbuildings, garden walls and sculpture form a notable group.

HISTORY: The 18th century farmhouse, extended in the C19 was the home of Thomas Bland (1799-1865), self taught sculptor, painter and composer. He created a garden of three terraces which opened in 1837 to commemorate Queen Victoria's accession to the throne. An C18 vernacular farmhouse, retaining evidence of an early domestic interior and distinctive through-passage plan form, further extended in the early C19 and enhanced by the creation of garden walling to enclose a distinctive formal garden created by Thomas Bland, self-taught sculptor, painter and composer. The garden is included in the Register of Historic Parks and Gardens.

Listing NGR: NY6037417637

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