Ellel Grange Home Farm and Walled Garden including stables, coach house and coachman's cottage, farmhouse, agricultural and horticultural buildings, and associated walls, yard and gates, Ellel, Lancashire

Summary

Estate farm and garden complex dated 1857 and 1862, including an earlier barn and outshut and incorporating two lintels dated 1699.

Description

Home farm complex for the house at Ellel Grange, dated 1857 to 1862, probably by John Weightman of Liverpool, for William Preston.

MATERIALS: red and buff sandstone (probably Sherwood sandstone, formerly known as Bunter sandstone, from a quarry on the estate), blue slate, stone slate and clay tile roofs, timber windows and doors.

PLAN: an L-shaped complex of buildings with some gaps, mostly two-storey. Aligned principally north-west to south-east, with a smaller range at the northern end, aligned south-west to north-east.

STABLES, COACH HOUSE AND COACHMAN'S COTTAGE

EXTERIOR: an L-shaped, two-storey range at the south-eastern end of the complex, with a walled courtyard in the angle and accessed via a gateway with lodges.

The stables face south-west and have a symmetrical principal façade, with the coach house and cottage range projecting at the left, and a single-storey lean-to outshut at the right. The walling is regularly-coursed and tooled, with dressed window and door surrounds with chamfered margins. The principal façade has two wide outer bays and a narrow central bay, each with a first-floor circular pitching-eye with cardinal-point keystones (all now fitted with windows). The central bay has a steep gable with stone shield inscribed (in relief) P/ W & M (for William and Margaret Preston), with a lighthouse crowned with a Liver bird, a lion, and dated 1857. The eaves and verges overhang, with recesses in the purlin-ends. The ground-floor has (replacement) windows at the margins and centre, separated by two segmental-arched vestibule openings with rusticated voussoirs and alternating quoins. The right vestibule has an inserted recessed glazed screen. The (slightly wider) left vestibule has inner walls, and openings with dressed surrounds or rusticated quoins; doorways in the left and right returns are infilled (one with a window), with a window and door opening facing the arch. Inserted stone steps access the raised floor. The roof is covered in clay tiles, with a rusticated stone ridge-stack centrally in the right-hand bay.

The south-east wall matches the front, with coursed, dressed stone, a first-floor pitching-eye and projecting verges. The ground-floor outshut has an inserted window, with a rusticated pillar at the right. The gable has a decorative wrought-iron sailing-ship weather vane (probably a reference to Preston’s mercantile interests).

The north-east (rear) wall is of coursed squared rubble with dressed window surrounds, and mostly two-light mullioned window openings with replacement windows.

The north-west wall is contiguous with the rear wall of the coach house and cottage, with details matching the stable front. This wall is gabled at the left over the former stables hayloft, with a first-floor door (linked by a later six-stepped brick-and-concrete bridge to the adjacent combination barn) and inserted window, and original ground-floor window with eight-over-eight sash. To the right of this the coach house has a ground-floor window with eight-over-eight sash. The cottage has an eight-over-eight sash window at the left with a five-over five casement upstairs, and a central doorway (with vertical-plank door), reached by a direct flight of stone steps. Immediately to the right of the steps is a cellar door, with two eight-over-eight sash windows stacked above it. To the right of these is a tall, six-over-fifteen pane casement stair-window. The rear roof pitch is covered with slate. The angle at the right has alternating quoins. The south-west cottage wall is blind, with similar quoins at the south-east angle.

The south-east wall of the cottage and coach house has details matching the stable façade. The cottage at the left is a single, wide, gabled bay with stacked central eight-over-eight sashes, and a doorway to the left with moulded cornice (slightly damaged) above, and vertical-panelled door. The coach house has a smaller gable, with pitching-eye (unglazed), and segmental arch similar to the stable vestibules, but taller, with timber doors. The cottage has a ridge stack to the right of the gable.

INTERIOR: the stables and coach house were not inspected. The cottage was inspected only from the front door as its floors were unsafe. The parlour retains skirtings and door surrounds, and a large fireplace with cooking range, mantle-shelf and built-in cupboards. Some lath-and-plaster ceiling survives. The timber stair is accessed by a vertical-panelled door from the parlour. The pantry retains some tiling and shelving. The upper floor structure survives with its wooden floorboards.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: the cobbled yard retains its original surface (apart from an inserted strip of flagstones) and is surrounded by a tall stone wall matching the principal frontages, with stone coping. At the angle with the cottage, this has diminishing quoins down to yard level, with a wrought-iron gate and stone steps down to the level of the adjacent lane. Six tall rusticated piers flank the main gateway; five have flat, pyramidal caps but the most northerly forms a chimney for one of the two small lodges directly flanking the gateway, which have hipped, graduated slate roofs and details matching the principal frontages. Each has a sash window in the entrance passage, and a doorway facing the yard. The gate piers have wrought-iron lanterns, now missing their glazing.

FARM BUILDINGS AND FARMHOUSE

EXTERIOR: a linear range in the centre of the complex, comprising a small combination barn, stable-with-shed, pigsties, looseboxes, farmhouse and former store, with a gap for the entrance to the walled garden between the first two buildings. The style and details are similar to the stable and coach house range.

The combination barn is gabled at both ends, with a concrete-tile roof. The ground floor is in red stone, the upper floor grey. The front façade has three bays, with a shippon window to the left, a left-of-centre segmental-arched cart entrance, and a smaller segmental-arched entrance at the right, with a window above. The walling is regularly-coursed, with tooled alternating quoins. The two arches have tooled voussoirs and quoins, with raised keystones. The shippon window has a tooled stone surround with a deep lintel, and a projecting, stooled sill. The upper window has a stone surround with a projecting sill. To the right of the main entrance are two vertical ventilation slits. At the right, stone steps ascend the end wall, and towards the rear these are linked by a brick-and-concrete bridge to the stable and coach house block.

The north-west wall has three doorways for shippon passages, all raised, the two at the left now blocked in stone with windows, the right retaining a vertical plank door with missing overlight. The surrounds are tooled and quoined. The walling is regularly-coursed and rock-faced, but less regular above the original gable line, with a square owl-hole stone beneath the projecting verges, which have recesses in the purlin-ends. The north-east (rear) wall is of regularly-coursed squared rubble with window to the right, ventilation slits opposing those in the front wall, and small ground-floor windows to the left. The south-east wall has steps to a central first-floor door with tooled, quoined surround, which is flanked by windows with tooled projecting sills.

A modern gate spans the gap between the combination barn and the stable-with-shed. This building stands end-on to the yard, with a gable pitching-eye (glazed) and central doorway with overlight, flanked by casement windows. The front wall is of coursed, dressed stone, with quoined angles. The side returns and rear wall are of squared rubble, the rear wall forming part of the circuit around the garden, and having a coped gable. The shed runs across the rear portion and is open-sided to the south-east, with quoined jambs.

Adjoining the north-west wall of the stable-with-shed is a range of three lean-to pigsties against the garden wall. These have a graduated slate roof, regularly-coursed stone front wall, and doorways with ashlar quoins and lintels. Coped stone walls divide the three pens, terminating with round-headed stone pillars. Between the pillars are purpose-made cast-iron panel fences incorporating a feeding trough, which bear the legend W BENNETT LIVERPOOL 1862.

Adjoining the pigsties is a block of three looseboxes with a hayloft above, with two pitching-eyes matching those of the stables (glazed at the right). Below a row of ventilation grilles, each loosebox has a window to the left of its door, all with quoined surrounds; these and the quoins to the angles are all ashlar. The centre box retains its split door with overlight, and six-over-six sash window, the other doors and windows are timber replacements, with a modern metal gate protecting the right-hand door. The ridge of the graduated slate roof has the frame of a wooden louvred vent. The south-east wall is gabled, and blind except for a first-floor, six-over-six sash window with stone surround. The rear wall is of coursed squared rubble, and blind except for ventilation slits with iron boxes and stone lintels. Stone gutter corbels project. The north-west wall is obscured by the adjoining farmhouse.

The farmhouse is deeper in plan than the looseboxes and so it projects (with a blind south-east wall), but is under a contiguous roof, with two stone, corniced stacks. The (south-west) front is symmetrical, and of three bays with a central doorway, and quoins matching the looseboxes. The door surround is moulded, and the door vertically-panelled, with glazing to the upper three panels, and an overlight. The flanking windows have full-height plain surrounds with ashlar aprons below the windowsills, and deep bottom sills the height of the two steps to the front door. The three first-floor windows have exaggerated quoining and projecting, stooled sills. All the windows are pvc replacements. The north-west wall is gabled, of coursed squared rubble with quoins at the rear angle, and has a first-floor window with plain surround; the ground floor is obscured by a single-storey link to the great barn. The rear is of coursed squared rubble. A small first-floor window and small ground-floor window have stone lintels and sills, and the large kitchen window has a squared stone surround. The link-block has a tall, coped front wall, with a Jacobean-style moulded stone door surround with a decorative lintel, dated 1699. Its rear and side walls are of random squared rubble with alternating quoins, with two-light chamfered mullioned windows in each side, and a similar three-light rear window.

INTERIOR: interiors were partially visible. The combination barn retains a flagged barn floor and partial shippon interior including a stone stall divider. It has king-post roof trusses with struts. The wall dividing the stable from the shed is of plastered brick and has a door from the hayloft, with small platform. The loosebox interiors have modern finishes. The farmhouse interior retains some cornicing, a cloakroom with shelving and a panelled door, dining room cupboards and a living room stone fire surround. The link block retains stone larder slabs and pantry shelves, the six-over-six sash window of the kitchen, and a datestone inscribed 1699/IC, with a swollen waist to the letter I.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: a wall of coursed, squared, rock-faced stone with a triangular coping course surrounds the yard on its south-west and north-west sides, with a curved corner, and pedestrian gates for the farmhouse and cottage. Opposite the entrance to the walled garden, this wall has a formal entrance splay. All the entrances have triangular-headed stone posts. A straight wall of the same design divides the yard from the front garden of the cottage, with a pedestrian gate from the yard into the garden.

LARGE BARN AND OUTSHUT

EXTERIOR: an L-shaped range forming the north-western corner of the complex, comprising a large combination barn aligned north-west to south-east, and an outshut aligned south-west to north-east.

The barn’s principal façade faces south-west and is of grey sandstone in finely-jointed, regularly-coursed, horizontally-tooled, squared blocks with dressed margins. A two-course plinth is of rock-faced blocks and slightly projects. The ends are gabled, with copings, and the roof is of graduated stone flags. The barn has two wide bays. The left-hand bay has a central segmental-arched cart opening with keystone and modern timber doors, and a small window to the left. The right-hand bay has a central door with a (open) pitching-eye above, with cardinal-point keystones. Guttering is plastic, but on original metal stays.

The south-east wall of the barn is largely obscured by the screen wall of the block linking it to the farmhouse, but is of watershot courses and has a square owlhole stone in the gable. The rear wall was only partially inspected but is also of watershot courses, with a ground-floor window at the left with a squared stone surround, and a higher-level (internally-blocked) window at the right with tooled, wide-quoined surround. At the north end it is partially obscured by the attached outshut. The north-west wall is watershot and has an owlhole matching the other gable. It has three shippon-passage doorways with exaggerated quoin-stone jambs and two vertical-plank doors, the left-hand doorway having a later, sliding, metal door.

To the north-east of the barn, the attached outshut has a front wall flush with the north-west end of the barn; the barn’s quoins form the right jamb of a doorway at the right, whose lintel is also keyed into the barn. The walling is of roughly-dressed, regularly-coursed, squared stone. The roof is of graduated slate, with a full hip at the left, and a collapsed former hipped roof at the right. The right-hand half is blind at first-floor except for a small square vent, and has a taller left-hand and shorter right-hand doorway, both with deep lintels and quoined jambs. The left half has two wide openings divided by a dressed-stone pillar, below a single squared wooden lintel which is chamfered, with stepped, lamb’s-tongue stops. Above these are two square windows (one with a horned, three-over-three pane sash) with quoined jambs and stooled sills, and a doorway with quoined jambs. The left angle is also quoined; all the quoins and other dressings are tooled, with finely-dressed margins. The north-east wall is of squared rubble and largely obscured by the north-east range of buildings. The rear is of slobbered rubble near the barn, with a first-floor window with squared surround (jambs and lintel fallen outwards in 2020). To the right of this it is cement-rendered.

INTERIOR: interiors were only partially-inspected from outside. Walls mostly retain lime-wash or lime-plaster. The north-western shippon interiors of the barn have been modernised, with a large concrete podium and a cross wall inserted to the right of the central doorway. The central space has a screed floor and is open to the roof, which has king-post trusses with struts, and retains some hewn purlins. The southern end of the barn has a hayloft floor, and shippon interior with a cobbled floor, raised standings and some timber stalling.

The outshut has some cobbled floors, altered timber stalling, a loosebox with screed floor, and a shippon interior with a cobbled floor, raised standing, curved-timber stall divider and timber tethering post. The first floor was not inspected but has partially collapsed adjoining the barn, allowing a view of a doorway into the loft over the barn’s northerly shippon space. In 2017 the lime-plastered and torched walls and roof of the upper floor were visible but in 2020 these have collapsed into the building.

GARDEN WALL AND NORTHERN RANGE

EXTERIOR: a circuit of walls enclosing a walled garden, with a range of buildings attached to the outer face of the north-west wall.

All legs of the wall have flat stone copings. The wall’s south-eastern face matches the wall around the stable yard, with regularly-coursed, squared and tooled stone, and rusticated stone piers with pyramidal caps at its corners and gateway. The gateway is central and has a vertical-planked door with decorative iron strap hinges. The southern pier supports the roof of the stable outshut, and thus has no cap. The wall steps down to this level, with a curved ramp. The other outer faces are of coursed squared rubble (including the north-west face where this is now enclosed by the northern range of buildings; this leg also has curved ramps to a slightly-raised central section). The north-eastern leg has four large triangular outer buttresses, and ramps up at its northern corner to form a verge to the former glasshouse roofs. At this northern corner an irregular vertical joint marks the addition of the lean-to northern range of buildings. Inner faces, where visible, are of brick, laid in header bond with spacers, and are partially rendered where the glasshouses formerly stood.

The northern range runs the length of the north-western leg of the garden wall, abutting the outshut of the barn. This is a single-storey, lean-to range of buildings comprising seven principal internal spaces beneath a continuous, graduated slate roof. The walling is of random-coursed, roughly-squared stone, with dressed surrounds to openings; most have quoined jambs. Some of the frontage was obscured at inspection (2017) by vegetation. At the left, space 1 has a vertical-plank door and appears to have been unlit, although a hole in the roof might formerly have been a skylight. Space 2 has a two-light mullioned window, vertical plank door and two small skylights. Spaces 3 and 4 each have a window, and they have paired doorways. The raised portion of the garden wall rises above these two spaces, and space 3 has a square brick chimney of domestic scale. Space 5 has a small skylight and a wide, two-light window with stopped-chamfer mullion. Space 6 has a single window but no visible external doorway, and three or four skylights. Space 7 is open-fronted under an iron lintel.

INTERIOR: interiors were partially inspected; most have plastered or lime-washed end walls but no finish to the garden wall, and torched slates. Space 1 has a bench built into the north-eastern wall. Space 3 has a stone flag floor, partially-surviving timber panelling and cupboards, and a chimney breast with iron cooking range and mantle shelf. Space 7 has a doorway in its side wall adjoining space 6.

SUBSIDIARY FEATURES: at the northern corner stands a tapering stone gatepost.

History

Cockersand Abbey, founded in the C12, had a grange (a monastic farm) at Ellel. After the dissolution of the monasteries the lands were sold, and it is recorded that the Preston family held some of the land at Ellel ‘of the king’ (Henry VIII). It is not known when a gentry house was first built here. The Prestons were Catholic recusants and William Preston’s Ellel estate was sequestered in 1650 and only reclaimed on payment of a large fine. A decorative doorway dated 1699 which is incorporated in the farm complex might date a rebuilding of the house. Another datestone of 1699 inside the same link block also has the initials IC, which are thought to relate to James Carter (J is often represented as I on datestones), son of the prosperous tanner Edward Carter (c1650-1717) of Galgate, who 'had purchased Ellel Grange from the heirs of Thomas Procter'. In 1805 the grange belonged to Edmund Rigby, and was bought soon afterwards by Richard Worswick, a Lancaster banker. In 1823, the estate was bought by Richard Atkinson for £11,480.

In 1856 it was bought by a Liverpool merchant and distiller, Alderman William Preston (1805-1871; a native of Pilling, five miles away, and related to the earlier Prestons, and later Mayor of Liverpool and High Sherriff of Lancashire). Preston commissioned a Liverpool architect, John Weightman, to build a new Italianate house from 1857 to 1859. Preston was also responsible for some landscaping and the new stable block and farm buildings; these are thought also to be by Weightman, but have not been positively attributed to him. The last resident member of the family was Betty Sandeman, of the port dynasty, who was William’s great, great granddaughter. After Sandeman’s death in 1979, the farmland remained in the family but land containing the house, drive and church was separately sold.

The grange is marked on county maps of 1786, 1818 and 1829. The 1818 map suggests that the primary access was originally from the north. The 1829 map appears to show an access from what is now the A6, on the line of the current drive. Although the tithe map of 1844 shows a short section of drive which crosses to the east side of the Lancaster canal but goes no further, it also shows the lodge and entrance splay at the A6, which on the 1848 first edition Ordnance Survey (OS) 1:10,560 map are shown together with a drive connecting these to the canal bridge. This map was surveyed between 1844 and 1845, and perhaps these maps illustrate that the drive was altered around 1844.

Comparison of the first edition OS map with the 1891 1:2,500 OS map (surveyed in 1890) shows that almost all the farm buildings were replaced in this period, during which the earlier house was also demolished. The rebuilding is likely to have taken place over a few years, around 1857; the stable block is dated 1857, while the pigsty fences are dated 1862. The 1861 census includes the coachman’s cottage and farmhouse, but both were unoccupied. However, the large barn appears to be older, and is thought to be the building, together with its north-eastern outshut, depicted in this location on the 1848 OS map.

The garden wall appears to be contemporary with the stables and main farm buildings, while the northern range, built as a lean-to against the outer face of the garden wall as potting sheds, is slightly later. All of the buildings on the 1891 map survive with virtually no alteration to the footprint, apart from the glasshouses that stood internally against the north-west wall of the walled garden, which have been demolished.

The stables have been converted to residential use with consequent loss of interior features and plan-form, and replacement and addition of windows. The coachman’s cottage remains (2020) empty since the 1970s. The smaller combination barn appears to have been raised in height as there is a marked change in the stonework at the upper level on the front and gable walls. Two of the passage doors in the north end have historically been blocked in stone to form windows, and the shippon interiors removed. The roof has been re-covered in concrete tiles, with plastic rainwater goods. The farmhouse remains in residential use and has had replacement windows fitted. The linking block between the farmhouse and the barn retains its front wall but it was extended to the rear between 1891 and 1912. It now forms part of the farmhouse with a replacement monopitch roof, and replacement concrete roof tiles to the rear extension. The shippon interiors at the north end of the large barn have been removed and a concrete podium inserted. The barn appears to have been refronted (probably when the new buildings were built) as its rear and end walls are of watershot stone with rustic owl-holes in the gables, compared with the very finely-dressed stone of the front wall. It has been reroofed, retaining some of the earlier roof purlins and the stone flag covering. The threshing floor has been overlaid with a concrete screed. The barn’s north-east outshut has suffered a roof collapse since initial inspection (2017) but much of the material remains (in July 2020) within the building.

Reasons for Listing

Ellel Grange Home Farm and Walled Garden, a small-scale estate farm and garden complex dated 1857 and 1862 and including earlier fabric, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
Architectural interest:

* an estate farm and walled garden of good quality design, detailing and craftsmanship, including stonework and wrought iron, of a quality that is above the purely functional;
* with a good degree of survival, including of early-C19 fabric incorporated within the re-fronted large barn and its outshut;
* the majority is dated 1857 and 1862 and incorporating two lintels dated 1699.

Group value:

* for the strong functional and visual relationship with nearby listed buildings including the hall, its former service wing, King’s Lee Chapel, the Preston family mausoleum and the listed bridges carrying the access to the farm across the Lancaster Canal.

External Links

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