| Summary : Schoose Farm is a model farmstead built in circa 1800 for John Christian Curwen of Workington Hall. The farm buildings are castellated and laid out to an irregular plan. They are constructed of sandstone rubble with a mix of slate and corrugated asbestos roofs.A Gothic gate house at the entrance is flanked by curtain walls, which incorporate cow houses. To the south of the gate house is a pentangular yard and a two-storied barn, beside which is a windmill. The windmill has five storeys and by 1985 the sails and floors had been removed.A large stable block to the north-west housed both farm and colliery horses, although it has since been converted into a farmhouse with adjoining barns. To the south of this is a long livestock shed with a dairy in the cellar below. The farm complex also included a slaughter house, poultry yard, mill pond and water mill to the south. The former stack yard to the south-west is now the site of a caravan park. |
More information : (NY 01452800) Schoose (NAT). (1)
NY 014280. Schoose Farm Steading, an extensive and informally planned group of stone farm buildings built by John Christian Curwen (liberal politician and agricultural innovator) circa 1800. The buildings have segmental arches to openings and battlemented parapets, and there is the masonry shell of a tall windmill Gde III. (2-3)
Recommended as Gde II by Authy 2. (4)
Schoose Farm is located within Workington Hall, which is Grade II listed on the Register of Parks and Gardens. (5)
Schoose Farmhouse and adjoining barns. Farmhouse and barns, formerly stable block housing both farm and colliery horses. Circa 1800 for John Christian Curwen. Farmhouse has roughcast walls, under C20 tile roof with roughcast chimney stacks. Barns of calciferous sandstone and cobble rubble, partly under graduated greenslate roof,with remainder under corrugated asbestos. 2 storeys, 3 bays with barns adjoining forming overall U-shape. Farmhouse has C20 door and sash windows in painted stone surrounds. Rear C20 windows in painted stone surrounds. Attached barn has central blocked segmental archway and flanking blocked doorways, under loft doorways in quoined surrounds. Upper-floor slit vents have red brick surrounds. L-shaped, 2 storey right return with upper-floor slit vents, partially roughcast and inserted door in gable. Outer face also with inserted entrance, loft doorways, ground and first floor window openings in plain stone surrounds. Remains of external stone stair to right leading to first floor loading doors. Forms part of a model farm. Listing NGR: NY0142828018
Windmill, barn, gatehouse, curtain wall and stack stand. Circa 1800 for John Christian Curwen. Calciferous sandstone rubble with flush quoins, some walls with battlemented parapets and angle pilasters. Mostly under corrugated asbestos roofs, some slate. 5-storey windmill and adjoining large 2-storey barn with single-storey extensions, linked to other farm buildings by polygonal mock curtain wall to right and rectangular mock 2-storey gatehouse to left, enclosing a courtyard on 3 sides. Windmill has tapering doorways on 5 levels and small tapering side windows, all in stone surrounds with horizontal scoring. Simple string course at second floor level with traces at first floor. All floors and sails removed, some traces of wooden flooring structure remains and blocked entrance to stairway in thickness of walls. Barn has gable bridge-ramp entrance and slit vents on 3 levels. Some internal alteration including addition of partial floor. Adjoining mock curtain wall has blocked segmental arch with flanking cross vents and battlemented parapet. Gatehouse has segmental archway providing passage to enclosed yard under cross and lancet vents under stepped battlemented parapets. Lower cow sheds linking with windmill range, have a series of segmental arches under a monopitch roof retaining original roof structure. Immediately to south west and formerly attached, large stone built raised stack yard surrounded by c.45 arched openings identified as "stacks" on a plan of 1808. Forms part of a model farm. John Christian Curwen said in his presidential address to the Workington Agriculural Society, 1809, "the choice was between a fire engine and a windmill. The expense was nearly equal. The fire engine the more certain but the more dangerous. This decided me in favour of the windmill. I can by this machine dress in two hours as much or more than employed four horses a whole day and I expect to thresh only on wet days when I have no other work ... the expense has been very considerable and perhaps greater than was necessary. The machine is well constructed and calculated to perform a great deal of business and does credit to the architect, Mr Dunn of Coldstream." See Transactions Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian & Archaeological Society, new series, lxxii, pp133-136. Listing NGR: NY0140427985.
Byres and hayloft, formerly stable. Early C19 for John Christian Curwen. Calciferous sandstone rubble with pilastered quoins, under hipped graduated greenslate roof. 2 storeys, 8 bays. Plank doors and casement windows under loft doorways and brick-blocked windows; doorways with quoined surrounds and windows in plain stone surrounds. Forms part of a model farm and included for G.V. with other farm buildings. Listing NGR: NY0146028044,
Granary and dairy now used as farm store. Circa 1800 for John Christian Curwen. Calciferous sandstone rubble with flush quoins, under hipped graduated greenslate roof. 3 storeys, 9 bays. Right portion has ashlar steps to loft doorways on 2 levels under hoist gablet. Ground-floor segmental-headed doorways blocked to form windows. Upper-floor louvred windows in plain stone surrounds. Left portion has enlarged C20 cart doorway and brick-blocked windows in plain stone surrounds. Vaulted basement to ground floor former dairy. Single storey 1 bay cell to left, of rubble with large quoins, chimney and roof vents. Rear lean-to asbestos shed is not of interest. Forms part of a model farm and listed for G.V. with other farm buildings. Listing NGR: NY0150228002. (6)
Curwen, John Christian (1756-1828), agriculturist and politician. In Cumberland he embarked on an improvement programme on his estates at Workington Hall. In 1805 he inaugurated the Workington Agricultural Society, which had a profound impact on local agriculture in the first half of the nineteenth century. (7)
John Curwen of Schoose Farm also owned collieries and the local docks. A keen agriculturist, in the early 1800s he set about improving Schoose Farm with the help of his steward Charles Udall. In 1805 he established the Workington Agricultural Society with an annual show at Schoose, the first of its kind in the region.
Plans of Schoose Farm published in 1809 show buildings forming an irregular octagon plan. At the entrance is a Gothic gate house with flanking 'curtain walls'. A two-storied bank barn has a windmill beside it. To the north of the barn is a pentangular yard with the gate house facing toward Workington Hall. A large stable block housed both farm and colliery horses and a long livestock shed with a dairy in the cellar below housed the cows. The farm also had a slaughter house, poultry yard, mill pond and water mill. (8-9) |