Kings Farm house, the upper and lower stables, looseboxes, calveshouse and open-fronted implement shed, Bisley-with-Lypiatt, Gloucestershire

Summary

A farmhouse, dating from circa 1777, for Thomas Hancox of Daneway House, and associated agricultural buildings, comprising two stable blocks, one dated 1834, looseboxes, a calveshouse and an open-fronted implement shed.

Description

MATERIALS
All the buildings are constructed from local limestone rubble, some with dressed quoins; the roofs are a mixture of Cotswold stone tiles and Welsh slate.

PLAN
The agricultural buildings partly surround a courtyard, which is fully enclosed on its north and east sides, and partly enclosed to the south; the house is set slightly apart to the west.

HOUSE
EXTERIOR
The house is of two storeys and three bays, a double-fronted range with a central, gabled entrance porch; to the left end, a lower additional bay of a single storey and attic, with a gabled half-dormer and gable end stack. To the right, the outshut returns to create a narrow gabled bay. There is a glazed lean-to to the right. The main range has been rendered, presumably to disguise the blocked window in the central bay at first-floor level. The entrance door is a C20 replacement in a wide opening, with glazed panels above raised and fielded panels. The windows are all horizontal, three-light timber casements. There are gabled dormers set centrally in the roof slopes to front and back. The gable end stacks are limestone ashlar, with moulded tops; one carries the date of 1777. The rear elevation is less regular, with an outshut clasping the rear of the original range, and returning to the east end. This has two gabled dormers set at irregular intervals. To the rear of the later bay at the west end, is a lean-to with a small external stack, possibly formerly a dairy or brewhouse.

INTERIOR
The house has a central entrance doorway under the porch, beyond which is a tongue-and-groove baffle, and six-panel doors to both principal rooms. The rooms to either side each have exposed ceiling beams and a winder stair of oak treads and risers set behind doors, one a plank-and-batten door of the late C18, the other a six-panel door of the C19. The room to the left has a late-C19 slate fireplace with panels painted as faux marble, and a tiled inset. A deep alcove with an arched top is set into the depth of the former rear wall, with a moulded bead surrounding it. The right-hand room has a moulded timber fireplace of similar date, together with built-in cupboards with C19 panelled doors. The additional bay to the west is reached through a late-C18 plank and batten door with strap hinges. The ground-floor room in this bay has a fireplace recess with timber bressumer over, late-C19 plate racks and an exposed ceiling beam. A C19 plank and batten door lead to the rear lean-to. The outshut running along the rear of the main range houses a late-C19 straight-flight stair with turned newels and stick balusters set against its rear wall. The first floor has two rooms in the main range, one of which has the blocked opening for an earlier sash window; the rooms have exposed ceiling beams, some with chamfers, and that to the right has a small timber moulded and shouldered fireplace with a semi-circular-arched, cast-iron grate with moulded details. The site of the emergence of the winder stair has been converted to a cupboard above waist height, set behind a C18 door. Adjacent is a small cupboard, perhaps formerly a smoking chamber, with L- and H-hinges to the C18 door. These rooms have late-C18 plank doors. The outshut is divided to create a bathroom, corridor and bedroom. The corridor leads to another corridor running from front to back of the main range, which gives access to one of the bedrooms in the main range, and the attic room in the western bay. This room has an exposed A-frame roof truss with lapped-on collar and iron fixings. The corridor also gives access to the winder stair to the attic, set behind a plank and batten door. The attic is divided into two spaces, divided by a C18 plank and batten door. The exposed roof structure has A-frame trusses with chamfered butt purlins and tenoned collars. The floors retain some of their wide elm boards.

LOOSEBOXES
This three-bay range, probably dating from the first half of the C19, adjoins the former dairy to the west, and the stable range to the east. The high single-storey range is stone-built to the rear, and timber-clad on a timber frame to the main elevation, with three stable doors. The roof is clad in Cotswold stone tiles to the front slope, and clay pantiles to the rear. The boxes are divided by three-quarter height timber partitions, and each retains its timber manger and rails. The steep roof is formed from trusses of paired principal rafters, tie beam, collar, yoke and twin purlins; there has been some later strengthening but the roof retains almost all of its original common rafters. It was reported that after the date of the inspection, much of the rear slope of the roof, including the trusses, had collapsed, by May 2013.

STABLE RANGE
This building is a three-bay range, adjoining the looseboxes, and carries a date stone for 1834. The range is constructed from squared and coursed limestone, as opposed to the rubble stone of the other agricultural buildings, and has a central entrance doorway flanked by window openings, all of dressed limestone, with four-centred-arched tops. Attached to the main elevation at the eastern end is a flight of stone steps giving access via a plank door to the hayloft above. The rear elevation is blind. The roof is covered in Welsh slate. Extending forward from the western end of the main elevation are the ruins of the former stone-built pigsties. The floor of the building is paved in brick, with moulded channels for drainage, and the paving extends out through the doorway to form a threshold with bull-nosed bricks to the front edge. The space is partitioned into three bays by timber plank partitions to half-height. Parts of the mangers and rails remain in situ, together with other timber fittings. The building is divided horizontally, with boards set on large section timber joists. The first floor is not accessible.

CALVESHOUSE
This small building adjoins the southern end of the range of ruined cowhouses, and is of one-and-a-half storeys. The gable end exposed by the collapse of the adjacent cowhouses has been infilled in brick. The first floor has a taking-in door; the ground-floor a door and window under timber lintels. The roof is covered in corrugated metal. The interior was not accessible.

LOWER STABLE
This building, dating from the late C18 or early C19, is situated south-east of the farmhouse, and one bay, perhaps the former cider house, extends into the garden below the house. The range is a single storey with a hayloft above, of three bays, with an additional, narrower bay attached at the western end. The rear wall, facing the farmyard, is blind, with an infilled door opening under a timber lintel. The eastern end has a stone-built stair, with a curved wrought-iron handrail, giving access to a plank door to the hayloft in the gable end, with a ground-floor door to one side. The western end has a pegged timber doorway under another timber lintel giving access to the main range; set at right angles to this is another, similar doorway into the additional bay. Above the apex of the additional bay, a former taking-in door in the gable end of the main range has been infilled in brick. The roof is covered in Cotswold stone tiles; there is a C20 rooflight set centrally within the northern slope of the roof. The additional bay, accessible only from outside, may be the site of the cider house recorded in the 1899 sales particulars. The single room is partly divided horizontally, leaving part exposed to the roof. The truss is formed from an A-frame of principal rafters, collar and single purlins, with a small yoke at the apex. There is no ridge piece. There are two small, splayed openings in the gable end, one to the ground floor and the other in the attic. The horizontal division is made by the insertion of heavy ceiling beams with joists and planks laid over. The walls are limewashed, indicating that the space has been used for the storage or processing of foodstuffs at some time. The main range is also limewashed internally, and is now a single open space. The large, chamfered ceiling beams retain the slots for the original joists, which have been replaced later, along with the plank floor of the hayloft, which is not accessible.

OPEN-FRONTED IMPLEMENT SHED
This small shed, which probably dates from the second half of the C19, is set to the rear of the barn and the former cowhouses, and faces away from the farmyard into a second yard. The building is of four bays and is single storey, with stone walls to both ends and the rear, which is now partly collapsed. The open front is carried on four timber uprights, which are chamfered, with chamfered pads above, carrying the wall plate; each upright is set on a moulded stone base. The roof, whose trusses are formed from tie beams, paired principal rafters and collars, has been covered in corrugated metal.

History

King's Farm, or King's House Farm as it is sometimes referred to in documentary sources, is recorded from 1729, and was part of the estate of the manor of Daneway, owned by the wealthy Hancox family from 1647. Its name derives from a Mr King who owned the site in the C17. William Hancox's estate passed to his son Thomas in 1729, and it was Thomas who was responsible for the building of the current house at King's Farm in 1777. Thomas' diary of 1781 includes an entry recording a payment to George Blackwell for paving the brewhouse at King's Farm, indicating that it was probably newly-constructed at this date. On his death in 1792, Thomas' estate was inherited by another Thomas Hancox, and he is known to have erected the large threshing barn at the farm (listed at Grade II) in 1805. It seems likely that most of the other surviving agricultural buildings on the farm were constructed at a similar date; the stable range to the north-east of the house has a datestone for 1834, and its features support a mid-C19 date. All the buildings which survive on the site are depicted on the 1842 tithe map. In 1867, King's Farm was sold out of the Daneway estate to a timber merchant, but was restored to the same holding in 1907, when it was purchased by the Bathurst estate, which by then owned the remainder of the Daneway estates. Shortly afterwards, the family of the current owners took on the farm, and it has remained in their tenure since then.

Sales particulars from 1899 show all of the buildings under consideration on their current footprints; they detail the buildings on site as, in addition to the house, a barn, two stables with lofts over, a cartshed, implement shed, two cattle sheds and yards, a calveshouse, piggeries, etc. Most of these buildings are identifiable in the surviving complex. The house was described as having a sitting room, kitchen, back kitchen, dairy, scullery, three bedrooms and two attics; this broadly accords with the current layout. It is likely that the house was at some time divided into two units: the central window to the first floor has been blocked, and there are winder stairs at both ends of the main range, which appears to indicate it was once two separate dwellings; this stage may have been brief, as the house is shown as a single unit on the tithe map of 1841, the sales particulars of 1899 and the historic OS map series from the later C19 and early C20.

The house, which had been extended in the later C19 by the addition of an extra bay to the west end, and an outshut clasping the rear and east end, was slightly damaged when a stray bomb, jettisoned by a German bomber in 1941, fell in the adjacent field, destroying a small lean-to kitchen extension at the south-west corner of the house; its footprint is preserved by the flagstone floor which remains in situ, partly covered by a later-C20 glazed lean-to.

In recent years the former cowsheds have lost their roofs and much of the eastern wall of the range has collapsed. There has also been gradual decay of the northern range, including the loss of the roof of the former dairy and the removal of its gable, and the partial collapse of the rear wall of the range, together with a small part of the roof of the looseboxes.

Reasons for Listing

Kings Farm house, the upper and lower stables, looseboxes, calveshouse and open-fronted implement shed are listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:
* Historic interest: the buildings all date from before 1840, and form part of a C18 and C19 farmstead;
* Rarity: such a complete group of farm buildings is increasingly rare nationally;
* Architectural interest: the house and upper stable are good, rather polite buildings which reflect the patronage of the Hancox family from nearby Daneway, who owned the farm until the late-C19;
* Grouping: the functions of the farm are clearly legible in the range of buildings set around the two yards, and vary from a cider house to stables;
* Group value: with the Grade II-listed threshing barn on the site.

External Links

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