Hodcott Barn, Animal House and Cottages, at Manor Farm, West Ilsley, West Berkshire

Description

WEST ILSLEY

503/0/10001 Hodcott Barn, animal house and cottage
14-NOV-07 s, at Manor Farm

GV II
Farmstead, mid C19 with threshing barn, animal house and pair of semi-detached cottages.

MATERIALS: Mostly in red brick with tiled roofs. Barn is timber framed with partial weatherboarding and a corrugated iron roof.

PLAN: Rectangular barn and animal house at right-angles to each other, forming, with a now derelict cart-shed, a U-shaped group of farm buildings to the north of a farmyard. Pair of semi-detached cottages to the south of the yard.

DESCRIPTION: Threshing barn
An impressive, tall and lengthy threshing barn of eleven bays forming the northern side of the farmyard. Brick plinth walls at the base and horizontal timber boarding above. Replacement corrugated iron roof, the pitch and the depth of which suggests that the former covering was tile rather than thatch. North elevation punctuated by two large cart-entrances which are paired on the south elevation. The southern examples have projecting porches, with the westerly of the two gable-ended in weather boarding and the easterly having a hipped roof in corrugated iron. Plain vertical boarded doors. The presence of two paired doors indicates that there were two threshing floors within the barn. The south elevation has an outshot between its two entrances, with a lean-to corrugated roof supported on concrete piers. Double door to east elevation above brick plinth level. West end has lost much of its weatherboard cladding.
Internally the brick plinth wall terminates in angled brick copings, supporting a timber cill from which rises the timber frame. Queen-post roof with chamfered tie-beams and knee-braces. Principal timbers are original with only the occasional section, such as a couple of braces on the south side and some rafters being replacements. Two missing partitions in the centre of the barn and to the east of the western door, evidenced by joints in the tie-beams. Much of the floor is not visible, although the western threshing floor is in concrete with some cobbling surviving at its northern end. Further cobbles are visible in the floor at the western end of the barn.

Animal house
This forms the west range of the farmyard. Brick two storey structure with tiled roof and plain ridge tiles. Single first floor hayloft opening to the west elevation and the same to the south elevation. East elevation has two doors and two windows at ground floor level. All, apart from the southern doorway which has a concrete lintel, have shallow brick arched heads. Straight joint in the brickwork between this and the threshing barn, demonstrating that they were not built as one. Small single storey link at the farmyard junction of the two buildings, with a corrugated lean-to roof and a further door with a brick arched head. All doors, windows and frames are in timber. Some window glazing survives, as do some louvered openings for ventilation.
Internally, at ground floor level the building is divided in three: a small room within the single storey link; a central main space in the north of the animal house divided by a boarded wall from a further small room to the south. Main north room has brick piers supporting the hayloft floor above, in situ hay racks and feed troughs with tethering rings along the west wall. Further feed trough along the west wall of the south room. Single room hayloft above with king-post roof. Stairs no longer in situ.

Cottages
The cottages to the south of the farmyard are semi-detached in English bond red brick under a single half-hipped tile roof, with crested ridge tiles and central shared brick chimney stack. Projecting eaves with plain timber barge boards. Originally built as mirror images of each other, but with later alterations particularly evident in the treatment of the outbuildings at each end. To the west is an outhouse with a lean-to roof, an ash pit and toilet, all accessed through a brick arched north entrance into a yard. Eastern outhouse area more substantially modified with a lean-to tile roof to the north, inserted ceiling and a squat south chimney addition. Brickwork of outhouses is not as competent or well executed as the cottages, implying that they are additions.
Each cottage has two entrances, to south and north. Front doors to south protected by brick porches with scalloped slate roofs. Majority of windows are boarded up, but internal inspection of the eastern cottage demonstrates that these are timber casements. The eastern cottage has a simple two-up two-down plan form with a wooden staircase in the north-east corner. Ceilings are of lath and plaster, walls are plastered, ground floor is in brick, with the upper floor boarded. Simple plank doors with iron fittings. There are some internal features surviving, such as built in cupboards, skirting boards and fireplaces with simple wooden fire surrounds and some surviving iron grates. Bedrooms are part under the eaves, with sloping ceilings.

HISTORY: Hodcott Buildings is a subsidiary downland farmyard to the parent farm at Manor Farm, West Ilsley. The precise construction date is not known, although evidence strongly suggests that it was built at some time in the mid-C19. The Parliamentary Enclosure map for West Ilsley parish, dated to 1828, shows the woodland known as Hodcott Copse, but no buildings at all to its south on the site of the present complex. However, by the time of the first edition Ordnance Survey map of 1879 a small farmyard area is depicted to the south of the copse and labelled 'Hodcott Buildings'. This shows in plan, a U-shaped building to the north, a further rectangular block to its south and a large circular feature at the south-east corner of the complex. The farm was part of the Lockinge Estate in the C19 which spent a great deal of money on building works and improving facilities, and thus productivity, during the 1850s. It is therefore possible that the Hodcott complex was built in the 1850s as part of this expansion, providing a small farmyard complex remote from the parent farm, with the two cottages enabling farm workers to live on site for reasons of practicality and security.

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: The complex is a good surviving example of a mid-C19 remote downland farmstead with its variety of structures for animal husbandry, crop processing and storage as well as the provision of farmworker accommodation to enable proximal living for practical and security reasons. The buildings are of special interest for their architectural form and particularly for their group value given their spatial and functional inter-relationships.

SOURCES: PS Barnwell & C Giles, English Farmsteads 1750-1914 (1997, RCHME).
RW Brunskill, Timber Building in Britain (1994).
Parliamentary Enclosure Map of West Ilsley, 1828 (Berkshire Record Office reference BRO Q/RDC/70A).

Reasons for Listing

Hodcott Buildings are a group of structures forming a small farmstead ancillary to and remote from the parent farm. The complex comprises a large and impressive timber-framed threshing barn, a two-storey animal house and a pair of semi-detached cottages around a farmyard. They are of mid-C19 date, possibly built during the 1850s investment and agricultural expansion of the then owner, the Lockinge Estate, and are in a local vernacular historicist style. The complex is a good surviving example of a mid-C19 remote downland farmstead with its variety of structures for animal husbandry, crop processing and storage, as well as the provision of farmworker accommodation to enable proximal living for practical and security reasons. The buildings are of special architectural and historic interest for their architectural form and particularly for their group value given their spatial and functional inter-relationships.

External Links

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