SNN106102 - Top Lodge, Fineshade, Northamptonshire: Historic Building Record of Outbuildings to The North-East (Rear) of The Farmhouse

A range of outbuildings within the curtilage of the grade II listed Top Lodge farmhouse, Top Lodge Road, Fineshade, Northamptonshire (SP 9797 9830), was surveyed prior to dismantling and rebuilding. The survey was commissioned by the Forestry Commission and undertaken by University of Leicester Archaeological Services. The range consisted of two buildings of different date, with evidence for episodes of repair and alteration to both. The earlier building, attributable to the mid-late 18th century, was a single storey stone-built structure with oak-framed roof supporting Collyweston stone tiles. The interior was divided into two rooms, separately accessed. One room had a large fireplace and no windows; the other had one small window and a pair of opposed doorways, one of which originally opened into an adjacent walled garden or yard. This building is likely to have been used for ancillary domestic tasks. The heated room may have been a washhouse or brewhouse, although diagnostic details were lacking making this a tentative interpretation. The later building was an open fronted cart shed constructed against the south-west gable wall of the 18th building, probably in the third quarter of the 19th century. This was also stone-built with a Collyweston roof covering. The roof structure of the cart shed was subsequently modified and brick buttresses added in an attempt to counter structural problems; alterations were also made to the roof of the 18th century building at some stage. A series of low-level openings punched through various walls were associated with the use of the building as a poultry house in the 20th century.