SNN112579 - New Lodge Farm, Kettering Road, Walgrave, Northamptonshire, NN6 9PJ: Historic Building Recording

In September 2018 a level 2 historic building recording was carried out at New Lodge Farm, Kettering Road, Walgrave, Northamptonshire, NN6 9PJ in advance of the conversion of existing traditional mid-C19 model farm to form three dwellings with associated garaging and landscaping. To understand the development of the farm-buildings the surviving elements of the historic fabric were supplemented by neighbouring examples as shown on Ordnance Survey maps. These show how the mid-C19 farm as later shown on the OS 1885 map, was subsequently modernised, notably in the postwar period, to keep up with new agricultural practices. The handsome brick buildings, both domestic and agricultural, of the mid C19 model-farm are notable for their architectural merit. The three ranges of working buildings allow the twin fold-yards to be accessible from the south-east and the Kettering Road. The layout of the working buildings is strictly symmetrical; the centrally located threshing-barn is flanked by the arcades of the (shorter) shelter-sheds; the two-storey corner structures have pyramid roofs and from these the side-wings (as tall as the shelter-sheds) project to the front foldyards wall and terminate in chimneyed gable-ends. The details of the farm-house, set to one side, are consistent with those of the farm-buildings. The fabric of the farm is a testament to the bricklayers’ skills, the doors and windows have distinctive and decorative obtuse-heads of alternating black and buff bricks with polychrome chequer-work infill to the tympana. These features are complimented by the denticulated-cornice of alternating buff and black bricks. For a farm that remained viable until 2007, with regular phases of modernising, much of the original mid-C19 fabric survives.