Description

PULFORD

34/0/10002 Farmbuildings at Meadow House Farm
31-AUG-05

II
Farm outbuildings. Late C19, with minor C20 alterations. Attributed to John Douglas, architect, of Chester for the Westminster Estate. Red brick with rendered and mock timber-framing. Hipped and half-hipped roofs with clay tile coverings.
PLAN: Linear main range with attached ancillary ranges to the rear forming an irregular L-shaped complex.
EXTERIOR: Main range extends north-east to south-west, comprised of single storey and 2 storey sections, with attached single storey and 2 storey rear ranges. The frontage range incorporates a Dutch barn and lofted cartshed at the north-east end, with a driftway giving access to a long 2-storeyed rear range. To the other side of the driftway, a single-storeyed section is attached to a cartshed with a granary above. Further to the south-west is a further long single-storeyed section, now used as a milking parlour. North-east end with wide segmental arch- headed openings to Dutch barn, and cart shed with overloft below half-hipped gable with render and applied timber-framing to apex. Cartshed with shallow segmental arch and boarded double doors. Narrow windows and shallow buttresses flank the doorway, which has a curved dripmould above the arched head. Inserted loft openings above. Further right, a full height arched opening or driftway gives access to the building to the rear of this part of the complex. This is a long storeyed range with multiple ground floor doorways, a double doorway and upper storey openings. To the right of the driftway opening a single storey bay links with a 2 storey unit with central gable. Below this gable, a recessed double doorway with shallow segmental arch and dripmould, flanked by shallow buttresses. Beyond these, single doorways with small windows above. Above the doorway, a wide arch-headed taking-in door. Either side of this are smaller inserted openings below plain wooden lintels. The hipped roof slopes at each end of this unit extend rearwards as the outer slopes of parallel wings with rendered rear gables incorporating apex windows with leaded glazing in domestic style. The frontage range ends with a long, single storeyed unit with a doorway, a window with a stone cill and a later wide opening with sliding door gear. Extending from the rear of the building, and from the rear wings to the carthouse/granary is a shallow U-shaped cowhouse, with half-hipped ends, and 2 half-hipped gablets to the rear wall. The end and rear wall gablets have render and applied timber-framing decoration, and small multi-pane windows.
INTERIORS: The interiors of the lofted units have exposed roof trusses, purlins and rafters and are little altered. The granary overloft has the fully-exposed roof system of the frontage range and the rear wings with full width tie beams supported on intermediate posts, with steep angle braces extending from the post bases to the frontage range tie beams. At ground floor level, there is a 3-sided arcade of semi-circular and pointed arch openings accessed from the frontage doorways with small windows at their heads. These appear to be covered feed passages, with access to the central distribution 'nave' below, and to stalling on the other sides of the passages.
HISTORY: Meadow House Farm appears to have formed part of the extensive investment made in farm improvement by the Westminster Estate in the late C19. The architect John Douglas was closely associated with much of this programme, and many of the designs for new or improved farmsteads are his work. The attribution of the buildings at Meadow House Farm to John Douglas is made by his biographer, Edward Hubbard. The farmhouse associated with the outbuilding has been demolished and the dwelling is thought to have been formed from an earlier outbuilding range.
SOURCE: Edward Hubbard: 'The Work of John Douglas ' Appendix II Catalogue of Works. p.278.

The complex of farm buildings at Meadow House Farm is of special architectural interest as a carefully-planned and little-altered late C19 farmstead built by the Westminster Estate to the designs of the celebrated Chester architect John Douglas. The buildings demonstrate the successful marriage of functional efficiency and architectural invention which characterised the best planned farmsteads of this highly significant period of farm development in England.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26670742

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.

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