Building record 7939/1/1 - Shutlanger Grove Farmhouse, Attached Walls, Gates, Gatepiers & Ha-Ha

One of a number of model farms built for the Duke of Grafton, c1840.

{1} Farmhouse. C.1840. Red brick in Flemish bond with limestone dressings, hipped slate roofs, yellow brick internal stacks. Double-depth plan. 2-storey, 3-window range. Central double-leaf part-glazed doors, approached by 2 stone steps, in stone porch with unfluted Doric columns, supporting entablature with triglyths to frieze, deep moulded cornice and blocking cornice. 12-pane sash windows with moulded stone surrounds. Plinth, stone quoins, storey band and band below deep projecting eaves. Lower symmetrical 2-storey, 2-window wings, set-back either side with similar windows, storey band and quoins. Single-storey 4-bay wings, further set-back complete tripartite composition with blind depressed-arched arcades with imposts; stone plinth and quoins. Arches to right of main block frame 2-light casement windows to alternate bays, with wood lintels. Terminal single-storey 1-window pavilions with pyramidal roofs, square blind windows with stone sills and flat-arched heads with keyblocks; quoins. Right terminal building formerly joined to farm buildings surrounding yard to rear. Left single-storey wing open to yard on 3 timber posts with wood lintels for cart standings. Limestone walls with limestone gatepiers and terminal piers and cast-iron gates extend from ends of single-storey wings to ha-ha dividing garden from field. Interior: stone-paved staircase hall with steeply ramped handrail and stick balusters. Grey veined marble chimneypiece in drawing room. Stone cellar. With farm buildings (q.v.) one of a number of model farms built for the Duke of Grafton. (Grafton Papers deposited in Northamptonshire Record Office; J. Steane: The Northamptonshire Landscape 1974, p240-1)

{4} William Bearne, writing in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society of England in 1852, commented on the generally bad state of farm buildings in Northamptonshire. However, he noted a few exceptions, the most obvious of which were those of the Grafton Estate in the parishes of Stoke Bruerne, Foscote, Abthorpe, Shutlanger, Blisworth, Greens Norton and Silverstone. Here the Duke of Grafton had ‘some years ago, remodelled some parts of his estate and erected a considerable quantity of new buildings’. About £20,000 was spent on improvements between 1840 and 1848 under the directions of John Gardner, who designed the buildings himself. The planning and design of these farmsteads, dating from the very beginning of the Victorian era, hark back to the Georgian period. Here, as elsewhere, the traditional E- and U-plan closely link to substantial farmhouses on the fourth side of the yard continued to be the most usual farm layout. The original plans show shelter sheds arranged around large courts, designed to be divided into separate feeding yards. Gardner made no provision for mechanised threshing, although one of the larger farmsteads included a barn at right-angles to the rear shelter sheds, extending into a stack yard allowing for a power source to be drawn alongside. In spite of these, and other well-publicised examples of improvements, much still remained to be done in the 1860s with writers such as Copland being outspoken in their criticism of landlords who refused to provide the necessary capital investment.

{5} Undated photo, also two photos dated 07.01.1994;

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 7/144 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), F10 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN45262.

<3> Bond A., 1995, Thematic Survey of Planned and Model Farms: Northamptonshire, (unchecked) (Gazetteer). SNN63075.

<4> Wade Martins S., 2002, The English Model Farm: Building the Agricultural Ideal, 1700 -1914, p.19+118-9+216 (part checked) (Book). SNN102219.

<5> Photographs of buildings in Shutlanger (Photographs). SNN113206.

Record last edited

Apr 20 2022 10:45AM