Barn and stables at Tidbury Green Farm, Tidbury Green, Solihull

Summary

A threshing barn with attached stable, dating from the first half of the C19.

Description

A threshing barn with attached stable, dating from the first half of the C19.

MATERIALS: red brick with plain clay tile roofs.

PLAN: the barn and stables run N-S, with the slightly narrower stable range to the north. A C20 shed runs at right angles from the E (rear) elevation of the barn.

EXTERIOR: the STABLES are lower than the adjoining barn, the front elevation of two wide bays, with a wide doorway to left and a shuttered window opening to right, each with a rebuilt segmental-arched head with a band of blue brick in the voussoirs. The window opening has been slightly shortened. The rear of the range is blind, and set back behind the line of the barn, forming a narrower range. The BARN to the is a continuous build with the stables, and has large, slightly off-centre threshing doors to both elevations, in segmental-arched openings. The doors are C21 replacements using the earlier strap hinges. The long elevations of the barn have ventilation holes set in a diamond patterns, eight to each side.

INTERIOR: the STABLE was formerly divided into four boxes; the sawn-off remains of the timber dividing posts are still visible in the floor, which is laid with brick setts including a drainage channel. The rear wall retains its timber mangers above a brick plinth. The roof trusses are of king-post form, with single ledged purlins, the king ties in iron. Common rafters meet at a ridge plank. A door leads from the stable to the barn.

The BARN retains its cobbled threshing floor, with a rammed earth floor to its N and concrete to the S. Brick piers extend a short distance into the space to either side of the threshing floor. The northern bay is horizontally divided, and the rest of the building open to the roof. The roof trusses are formed from tie beams and principal rafters which rise only as far as the collar, which is tenoned into upright queen struts, between which sit a single tier of clasped purlins. Common rafters rest on the purlins and meet at a ridge plank.

To the rear of the barn is a single-storey, metal-clad shed of later-C20 date, which is not included in the listing.

History

Tidbury Green Farm, a loose courtyard farm, has origins in the C17, and the current farmhouse dates originally from this period. It may have begun as a timber-framed house, in common with the majority of farms in the area, and later have been encased in brick; some of the internal joinery clearly dates from the C17, and there is evidence of timber framing with stone infill in the attics, but the exterior brickwork is indicative of a date in the late C18 or early C19, both stylistically and from the appearance of the bricks. The house underwent some updating internally in the C18 and the C19. The tithe map of 1840 shows the house, barn and a building on the site of the cowhouse, which follows the footprint of the existing building but with additions to the front at either end, not now extant. A row of pigsties with its attendant pens were added between 1884 and 1904, in which year it is shown for the first time on the 1:2500 Ordnance Survey. At this point, the farm, along with a number of others in the locality, was part of the estate of Henry Aylesbury Walker Aylesbury, who died in 1905, but whose estate was retained until the First World War. A large part of the estate was sold by auction in 1917, including Tidbury Green Farm, which was purchased by its tenant farmer. The farm buildings, which share an estate style, are shown on a plan accompanying the sales particulars, and described briefly: the house of brick and tile, with the rooms detailed, including an attic cheese room, outbuildings, well and garden; and the farm buildings, comprising a four-stall stable, double-bay barn, five-tie cowhouse and calf pen, seven-tie cowhouse, three pigsties and an implement shed. All these buildings survive today, though the former implement shed has been altered several times and now exists only as a roof over a series of brick piers, rather than the open-fronted shed shown on the 1917 plan and the earlier Ordnance Survey maps, which show that it had opposite sides infilled and opened at various times.

During the C20, some minor alterations were made to the buildings, including the insertion of a new ground-floor fireplace in the house, and some cosmetic changes, including the replacement of some of the windows in uPVC; and a shed was added extending at right angles from the long rear elevation of the barn. During the Second World War, a stray bomb landed to the east of the farm, causing the eastern gable end chimney to fall from the house; the apex of the gable and the stack were rebuilt. The farm remained in the same family’s ownership until the time of inspection in 2016.

Reasons for Listing

The barn and stables at Tidbury Green Farm are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: the threshing barn and stables are good and substantially complete examples of vernacular farm buildings whose function is clearly evident in their historic fabric;
* Group value: as part of a functionally-related group from an important period in the development of English agriculture;
* Historic interest: the farm buildings illustrate the character and development of regional farming traditions within the context of the overall national patterns in farming history;
* Rarity: the group is a reminder of the formerly agricultural nature of the West Midlands, prior to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution;
* Degree of survival: the threshing barn and stables survive very well.

External Links

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