Monument record 717/2 - Foscote House Farm

Foscote House Farm, Abthorpe. c. 1840. Duke of Grafton estate model farm. Model farms were architect-designed farmsteads inspired by the ideals of Enlightenment that combined utility with architectural beauty.

{1} Farmhouse. C.1840. Coursed squared ironstone, hipped slate roofs, brick internal stacks. U-plan. 2-storey, 3-window range. Central double-leaf, part-glazed, door with panelled reveals in limestone surround with plain pilasters supporting simple entablature and pediment. 16-pane sash windows to ground and first floor, all with stone sills and segmental-arched heads. Central bay breaks forward and has pedimental gable with string course to base. Deep projecting eaves. Lower 2-storey symmetrical wings flank main block to rear. That to rear left houses brewhouse and dairy. Interior: inner staircase hall with open-well staircase with stick balusters and steeply ramped and wreathed handrail rising to first floor landing hall. Original stone and marble chimneypieces. One of a number of model farms built for the 4th Duke of Grafton 1839-44. (The Northamptonshire Landscape, J. Steane, 1974, p.240-1).

{3} The 1823 Enclosure map shows the outine of the present Foscote House which was presumably built soon afterwards.

{5} Undated photo.

{7} Northamptonshire (63 examples recorded to date, gazetteer in NMR, Swindon).
Northamptonshire was a county dominated by large estates. Nearly a third of the area was in estates of over 10,000 acres and there were 38 owners of more than 3,000 acres in 1871. However, according to Caird, ‘many of them have no interest in their farms beyond the annual rent they receive, know nothing of the management of land themselves and do not employ an agent who does.’ As a result ‘their tenants, from deficient buildings and want of drainage are incapacitated from doing justice to their farms’. There were of course exceptions to this general picture. The Spencers of Althorpe were well known for their interest in improvements, the third Earl Spencer being the first President of the Royal Agricultural Society of England. The Duke of Grafton was also influential, and in the 1830s erected well-planned sets of buildings on several of his farms.
The main responsibility of the agent was to see that his employer’s estate produced a profit. This could mean that he might try to keep some of the owner’s more extravagant ideas in check, and here they could be in conflict with the architects whose grandiose schemes might well appear attractive to their patrons. The existence of pattern books meant that many agents, such as John Gardner, working for the Duke of Grafton, were able to adapt published plans to their own purposes. The plain classical steadings around the family seat in Northamptonshire are examples of well-proportioned, functional designs which could have provided very adequately for the requirements of their farms. Many of the designs published by the engineer and inspector to the Land Improvement Companies, John Bailey Denton, in his beautifully illustrated book, The Farm Homesteads of England, published in 1863, were the work of agents rather than architects.
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.

{10} "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 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 halfcentury. "

<1> Clews Architects, 1980s, Database for Listing of Historic Buildings of Special Architectural Interest: Northamptonshire, 6/4 (checked) (Digital archive). SNN102353.

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

<3> 1823, Enclosure map of Abthorpe, (unchecked) (Map). SNN42287.

<4> Steane J., 1974, The Northamptonshire Landscape, p.240-41 (unchecked) (Book). SNN5137.

<5> Photographs of buildings in Abthorpe (Photographs). SNN111844.

<6> Bond A., 1995, Thematic Survey of Planned and Model Farms: Northamptonshire, (unchecked) (Gazetteer). SNN63075.

<7> Wade Martins S., 2002, The English Model Farm: Building the Agricultural Ideal, 1700 -1914, p.19+118-9+216 (part checked) (Book). SNN102219.

<8> Pevsner N.; Cherry B., 1973, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p.75 (checked) (Series). SNN1320.

<9> Bailey, B, Pevsner, N, and Cherry, B, 2013, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire, p. 76 (Book). SNN111989.

<10> Riden P.; Insley C., 2002, The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Northamptonshire, p. 18-37 (Series). SNN102540.

Record last edited

Jan 31 2025 11:49AM