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Summary

A group of farmbuildings to the south-west of Great Parks farmhouse, circa 1850, including a linhay, shippon with bank barn over, dairy, stables and building of unknown function, possibly an engine house.

Location

Protected Status

• Listed Building (II) 1197119: GROUP OF FARMBUILDINGS SOUTH WEST OF GREAT PARK FARMHOUSE

Other References/Statuses: none recorded

Monument Type(s) and Dates

• FARM BUILDING (XIX - 1801 AD to 1900 AD (Between))

Full description

Wade-Martins, S., 2000, The Farmsteads of Devon: A Thematic Survey, 16 (Monograph). SDV351739.

Great Park has a 19th century, brick-built bank barn.

Ordnance Survey, 2013, MasterMap (Cartographic). SDV350786.

English Heritage, 2013, National Heritage List for England (National Heritage List for England). SDV350785.

Group of farmbuildings including a linhay, shippon with bank barn over, dairy, stables and building of unknown function, possibly an engine house. Circa 1850. Flemish bond brick on stone rubble footings; slate roofs; cast iron gutters, down-pipe and water tank. Plan: 3 ranges of buildings fronting a yard.The south range is a north-facing 6-bay linhay. The west range, adjoining at right angles, is a large bank barn over a shippon. Adjoining this, and at an obtuse angle to it, is a small dairy block for servicing the shippon. Adjoining this, also at an obtuse angle and facing south-west, is a stable block. Attached to the stable block, at the north-east end, is a small lean-to,possible former engine house, partly built round a tall iron water tank that collected all the water from the front pitches of the barn and stable roofs and fed a granite trough in front of it. Exterior: The linhay has timber chamfered posts and is still open-fronted throughout. The bank barn/shippon is unusual in having 2 first floor doorways to the barn from the yard, not the usual single door. The doorways have segmental arched heads and floating brick porches, the cheeks carried on moulded granite corbels, and shallow lean-to roofs, also on shaped granite corbels. 8 doorways on the ground floor (some blocked) have segmental arched heads with brick voussoirs. The rear elevation has a doorway with brick cheeks leading onto a farm track to the fields. Some of the doorways have been blocked. The dairy block is one-bay with a large segmental-headed arched doorway and a loft window. The stable block is 4 bays with a doorway to right of centre flanked by windows; loft doorway above the ground floor door, also flanked by windows, second loft door to the right. The rivetted iron water tank at the right end is large (about 3 and a half metres) and cylindrical with a tap above the triangular granite water trough.Lean-to abuts the tall, ramped stone wall to the yard;it is roofed with massive thick slates, and door on the south east side has an iron frame and iron middle rail, the lower half infilled with boards. Interior: All buildings roofed with early C19 king post and strut trusses, some struts missing but may never have been used as the same arrangement is noticeable at Wellparks (q.v.), another Downes estate farmyard. Lean-to has roof supported on iron rafters, and contains a granite platform with the remains of some iron fixings. Group value with the farmhouse and an earlier farmbuilding to the east. An interesting example of a small planned estate farmyard.

Wapshott, E. + Morris, B., 2018, Higher Park Farm, Crediton: Desk-based Assessment and Historic Building Recording (Report - Survey). SDV362812.

South West Archaeology Ltd. (SWARCH) was commissioned by Hargreaves Architecture (the Agent) on behalf of a Private Client to carry out historic building recording for a series of redundant farm buildings at Higher Park Farm, Crediton, Devon. This work was undertaken in order to inform and guide the adaptive reuse of the farm buildings, and to provide a record of the buildings as they currently stand.

The farm buildings comprise a barn and milking parlour, dairy and feed store, threshing barn, linhay, horse engine and cart shed. There is also a lean-to water tank adjoin the barn and milking parlour building.

The Barn and Milking Parlour is a long rectangular, two-storey structure of brick and stone with a pitched roof. The complex use life of this building indicates it has been adapted over time to serve a variety of roles. The current layout of this building would indicate it served as a mid 20th century milking parlour and cartshed with loft for fodder above. The 1852 plan would indicate the building was split into an open fronted shippon with straw loft above, and a single-storey piggery with enclosed court. A small single-storey lean-to structure built into the angle between the yard wall and the barn appears to be a larger boiler as indicated by the presence of a stoke hole and inflammable roof covering. The need for such a large volume of water is unclear.

The dairy and feed store is located between the barn/milking parlour and the threshing barn and was built in the early 1850s. The ground-floor features a sing wide cartshed opening under a segmental brick arch. At first floor level there is a single window with concrete sill and segmental brick arch; the window retains a pegged frame with bars and plank shutters on simple strap hinges. The first floor doorway is served by a cast iron ladder cemented in place. There is a forced doorway in the north-east wall that provides access to the loft in the barn and milking parlour. Within the upper room there are two ex situ doors: a late 19th century plain, four-panel door and a heavier 18th century plank door with chamfered timber braces and a wooden lock. The original function is probably a cartshed; the 1852 plan labels it a root store, presumably with secure storage above. It was adapted in the mid 20th century to form a dairy, serving milking parlours in B4a and B6, with a grain hopper for feed above.

The Threshing Barn is the largest, most elaborate and most impressive building on the farm and was also constructed in the early 1850s. The east elevation faces onto the yard and is the most elaborate. The main features are two, double-width, symmetrical doorways with porches and pentice roofs with granite corbels, as per the east elevation. The concrete floor indicates the interior was used as a milking parlour, with a feed passage along the west wall, a drain along the east wall, with room for eight stalls for 16 cows. The only other feature of note here was an ex situ, early 19th century, domestic, six-panel door from the Farmhouse. The blocked opening in the west wall shows there was a horse engine on that side to run the machinery. The strength of the floor, and the absence of windows, indicates the first floor was also used for storage; however, this capacity seems out of keeping with the size of the farm at this date. In the mid 20th century, the ground-floor level was reconfigured as a milking parlour, with doors blocked and forced in the north wall to service the feed passage and provide access to the dairy; the door in the south wall provided exterior access for the cows. The size and quality of this structure is out of keeping with the rest of the buildings – although perhaps commensurate with the re-fronting of the Farmhouse and thestatus of the architect, R.S. Cornish – and disproportionate to the size of the farm. The capacity of this building makes it tempting to suggest it was intended to process and store grain for the estate, rather than just this farm.

The horse engine is a small, polygonal, open-sided structure attached to the west wall of the threshing barn. This replaces an earlier horse engine on a similar footprint, as the blocked and forced openings in B6 would demonstrate. This is a lightweight structure designed to cover the horse engine that ran the threshing machines in the threshing barn. A small, sub-rectangular structure, created in the angle between the threshing barn/dairy feed building and the stone wall to the north. This was probably a cart or implement shed.

The Linhay is a six-bay, open-fronted, rectangular building of red brick on a plinth of blocky stone. The whole of the north elevation is open to the yard, with five tall oak posts carrying the first floor and the trusses. A narrow, broken loft ladder survives next to the brick corbel at the west end. The ground floor has been adapted from a single, open, loose box to individual cattle cubicles in the later 20th century; the cubicles are built from a mixture of new timber, railway sleepers and
the occasional telegraph pole.

Sources / Further Reading

SDV350785	National Heritage List for England: English Heritage. 2013. National Heritage List for England. Historic Houses Register. Digital.
SDV350786	Cartographic: Ordnance Survey. 2013. MasterMap. Ordnance Survey Digital Mapping. Digital. [Mapped feature: #110164 ]
SDV351739	Monograph: Wade-Martins, S.. 2000. The Farmsteads of Devon: A Thematic Survey. A4 Grip Bound + Digital. 16.
SDV362812	Report - Survey: Wapshott, E. + Morris, B.. 2018. Higher Park Farm, Crediton: Desk-based Assessment and Historic Building Recording. Southwest Archaeology. 181115. Digital.
	Linked documents:1

Associated Monuments

Associated Finds: none recorded

Associated Events

• EDV8081 - Desk-based Assessment and Historic Building Recording: Higher Park Farm, Crediton (Ref: 181115)

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