See important guidance on the use of this record.

If you have any comments or new information about this record, please email us.

Summary

Agricultural and light industrial building dating from 1909/10 and completed in 1937/8. It comprises a long linear three storey range constructed of limestone rubble with cream-coloured brick dressings and string courses under a slate roof. Part of the ground floor was originally used as a piggery. More recently the building has housed the abbey's beekeeping and tonic wine departments.

Location

Protected Status: none recorded

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• BUILDING (XX - 1901 AD to 2000 AD)

Full description

Ordnance Survey, 2012, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV348725.

Brown, S., Feb 2012, Buckfast Abbey. Assessment of Historic and Archaeological Significance Regarding Propsed Development of the Early 20th Century Three-Storied Light Industrial Structure Known as St. Anthony's (Report - Assessment). SDV350282.

Early 20th century three-storied light industrial building constructed of local limestone with yellow brick detailing around the windows and doorways. Its general appearance and style is in keeping with the monastic buildings opposite. It was originally built between 1905 and 1920 but was almost doubled in length in the late 1930s. The front, as completed in the late 1930s, has three gabled bays. It housed various crafts and industries associated with the modern abbey such as weaving, printing, honey extraction and the production of tonic wine.

Brown, S., Jan 2013, Buckfast Abbey, St. Anthony's, Building Recording (Report - Survey). SDV351035.

St. Anthony's was built in 1909/10 as an agricultural and light industrial building. The west end of the building, however, remained unfinished until 1937/8 when it was extended to its present length. According to a description of the abbey in 1910 the ground floor comprised piggeries, a corn store and a boiler room while on the first floor were rooms for honey extraction, laundry and tailoring. The second floor was used for general storage. The piggeries were not to last and were moved out, probably in the 1920s. The building, however, continued to house the beekeeping department and in 1925 a new honey press was put in at the east end of the ground floor. By 1930 much of the west end was occupied by the Tonic Wine department.
The general appearance of St. Anthony's was intended to reflect the architectural style of the abbey's buildings around the cloister. Constructed of local limestone rubble under a slate roof, the building comprises a long linear three-storied range with regularly spaced round-headed windows with cream-coloured brick dressings and decorative string courses. Red brick was used for internal window dressings and partition walls. In its present state the building has three gabled bays, the central one set flush into the wall. The gable bay at the east end dates from the original phase of building work in 1909/10 but the central and west ones were not added until 1937/38. A photograph of 1910 shows a row of alternating closely spaced doorways and small narrow windows on the ground floor, one doorway and window for each pigsty. Many of the doorways were subsequently partially blocked and converted to windows following the removal of the pigs. The building narrows at its east end where it bridges over the lower leat. The rear wall is plainer and has fewer windows. There are four chimney flues, no longer functional, built into the thickness of the walls while at the west end two brick chimneys rise above roof level. The latter are part of the later building phase.
The present main stair is original. It is constructed in softwood and comprises three dog-leg flights, one above the other with half landings. There is a hoist in the stair well with hatch doors at first and second floor levels. The first floor from the east end to the stair is of cast concrete and extends over the area of the former pigsties. The floor to the west of the stair, presumably over what was originally the corn store, is wooden. There is at present another wooden floor to the west of this which is thought to represent a later infilling of the gap left incomplete when building work stopped in 1910. The floor at the west end, in the 1930s extension is a concrete-covered steel frame structure.
Most recently the building housed the abbey’s beekeeping and tonic wine departments and a number of related fixtures, fittings and apparatus remain including a hydraulic press for honey extraction and 11 red deal heated tanks for storing honey on the first floor dating from the 1930s. At the west end of the second floor there was latterly a book bindery and much of the equipment associated with this still survives in situ.

Brown, S., Nov 2012, Buckfast Abbey. St. Anthony's. Interim Report on the History of the Building (Report - Interim). SDV351047.

The ground floor was originally intended for animals. A piggery is said to have occupied at least part of it and horses another. There was also a cow house located behind the east end of the building. St. Anthony was the patron saint of pigs and so the building's name may well reflect the original use of the ground floor. Other buildings within the modern abbey are also named after appropriate saints. A photo dated 1910 shows a row of closely spaced doorways along the front, most of which no longer survive. Inside a double row of square brick piers which probably mark two sides of a passageway, the pigsties occupying the front half. The piers support I-beam steel girders which in turn support a concrete floor. Another photo from the 1920s or 1930s shows the then unfinished west end of the building. The ground floor room at this end was completed but not the first floor above it which was roofed half-way up its height with corrugated iron. The ground floor room is different from the smaller compartments to its east and lacks the concrete first floor above.
The initial use of the first and second floors of the building is uncertain. By 1921, however, the bee department had taken over the east end of the first floor and later, both ground and first floors. By 1930 the western end of the ground floor was taken over for the production of the abbeys patent medicines which were later superseded by tonic wine. The new west end of the building completed in 1937 was for additional storage. The building contract of 1937 states that it was to contain a boiler room, laboratory and office and to have concrete floors at ground and first floor level, as survive today. The present cast iron spiral stair adjoining the boiler room is said to have come from a convent.
Other rooms within the building have been put to various uses within living memory including cider-making, butchery, a tailor's shop and a book bindery.

Sources / Further Reading

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV6054 - Assessment of St. Anthonys, Buckfast Abbey
• EDV6123 - Building Recording at St. Anthony's, Buckfast Abbey

Search results generated by the HBSMR Gateway from exeGesIS SDM Ltd.