Building record 550 - Charwelton Lodge and Farm

Charwelton Lodge and Farm is a multi-phase farmstead comprising a post-medieval farmhouse and a range of agricultural buildings focused around a farmyard. The surviving complex includes a farmhouse with origins interpreted as c.1700, a nineteenth-century threshing barn with a dated rebuilding phase of 1864, former stables, tack rooms, hovels, cattle-yard structures and later twentieth-century agricultural sheds.

{1} Charwelton Lodge and Farm occupies a prominent hilltop location northwest of Woodford Halse. The farmstead is centred on a farmhouse and a group of agricultural buildings arranged around a yard. Survey evidence identified surviving Northamptonshire ironstone masonry, cellar remains and structural timbers suggesting that parts of the complex may originate in the early post-medieval period, probably around c.1700. The farmhouse forms the focus of the complex and is thought to have originated as a smaller ironstone-built dwelling. Surviving cellar remains and earlier fabric indicate a post-medieval phase of construction, while major enlargement appears to have occurred during the nineteenth century. This expansion involved the construction of substantial brick elevations beneath a slate roof, creating a larger farmhouse associated with the developing farm. Although heavily restored in the early twenty-first century, the building retains evidence for both its earlier post-medieval origins and its nineteenth-century remodelling. North of the house is a farmyard enclosed by agricultural buildings of differing dates and functions. Surviving ironstone structures on the west side of the yard are interpreted as former cattle hovels, while buildings on the east side include former stables and a tack room. These structures reflect the importance of livestock and horse management within the agricultural operation. Several walls and structural elements are considered by the report to preserve seventeenth or eighteenth-century fabric, although firm dating evidence is limited. The principal agricultural building is a long threshing barn situated within the farm complex. A date stone records rebuilding or alteration in 1864. The barn contains opposed cart entrances to the north and south and incorporates decorative egg-and-dart brick capitals to the openings. Internally the building included a threshing floor, hay loft and stable accommodation. Part of the structure was originally constructed in stone but has subsequently been rebuilt in brick. Surviving stone slab flooring and evidence of later restoration works were also recorded. Additional brick-built outbuildings of uncertain function represent later phases of farmstead development. The final major stage of expansion is marked by several steel-framed agricultural sheds clad in asbestos sheeting. These are thought to date from the mid-twentieth century and were probably used for machinery, fodder or general agricultural storage.

<1> CHRISTOPHER HOBSON, 2022, HERITAGE BUILDING RECORD: A Post Medieval Farmhouse and 19th - 20th Century Farm Buildings at Charwelton Lodge, Woodford Halse, NN11 3DH (Report). SNN117205.

Record last edited

Sep 14 2026 9:13AM