Building record 854/1/2 - Caswell Farmhouse & Attached Outbuildings

Model farm built for Grafton estate. Former farmhouse, now part of research establishment. C.1840 with extensive C20 alterations. Coursed squared ironstone, hipped slate roof, brick ridge and lateral stacks.

{1} Former farmhouse, now part of research establishment. C.1840 with extensive C20 alterations. Coursed squared ironstone, hipped slate roof, brick ridge and lateral stacks. 2-storey, 3-window central block with lower 2-storey, 4-window wings either side, rebuilt and enlarged C20. Central double-leaf part-glazed door with panelled reveals and shallow limestone porch of unfluted Doric columns supporting entablature with triglyphs to frieze and pediment. Tripartite sash windows above door and to ground floor left and right, 12-pane sashes to first floor left and right and to wings, except for tripartite sash to ground floor centre of right wing. All windows have flat-arched heads and keyblocks. Central bay of main block breaks forward and has low pedimental gable with string course to base and blank rectangular sunk panel in gable; plinth, storey band, chamfered quoins to angles and jambs of window, and deep overhanging eaves. The symmetrical composition is completed by single storey outbuilding wings, now converted to offices and extensively remodelled, with round-arched windows to right wing. That to left is joined to extensive, much altered range of former farm buildings, which largely enclosed former yard to rear. Interior: house has some original stone chimneypieces and brick-lined cellar. One of a number of model farms built for the 4th Duke of Grafton 1839-44. (Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, 1973, p.240; J. Steane, The Northamptonshire Landscape, 1974, p.240-1).

{4} Undated photo.

{5} "John Gardner persuaded the 4th duke, a few years before his death in 1844, to institute a vigorous policy of rebuilding farmsteads throughout the estate. In some cases obsolete farm buildings were replaced with imposing quadrangles of barns, stables and cattle-sheds, built of coursed rubble limestone with slate or tile roofs, without the farmhouse itself being rebuilt. Elsewhere the houses were replaced with substantial four-square late Georgian buildings, again of coursed limestone (perhaps with ironstone quoins and dressings to the doors and windows), usually beneath a hipped slate roof. Where only the buildings were replaced, and in some cases where a new house was also erected, these 'model farms' (as they have come to be called, although the term is not found in contemporary estate papers) stood on the village street, flanked by older farmhouses and cottages. In some parishes, however, the new farmsteads were established outside the village on former common-field land that had been consolidated into larger holdings as a result of inclosure over the previous half century."

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 3/61 (Digital archive). SNN102353.

<2> List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest ("Greenback"), F08 (unchecked) (Catalogue). SNN45262.

<3> Pevsner N.; Cherry B., 1973, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, (unchecked) (Series). SNN1320.

<4> Photographs of buildings in Greens Norton (Photographs). SNN112586.

<5> Riden P.; Insley C., 2002, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Northamptonshire, p. 18-37 (Series). SNN102540.

Record last edited

Jan 18 2024 4:09PM