SNN112593 - Wellingborough Grange, Hardwick Road, Wellingborough, Northamptonshire NN8 6BW: Historic Building Survey

A programme of historic building recording (level 3) was carried out during June 2020 at Wellingborough Grange, Hardwick Road, Wellingborough, Northants, NN8 6BW as part of an application for a proposed development of the farm buildings. Few firmly datable features surviving before the mid and late C19 building programmes suggest a long period of growth and the inevitable loss of fabric with each new rebuild. Old furnishings were replaced and roofs were rebuilt with ironframes, clad with corrugated-sheets. Reused material supporting the evidence elsewhere around the farmstead is informative and it is possible to glean information from the stonework despite ribbon-pointing on the house and barns. The study suggests that the original laithe-house is of medieval date, a two-bay wing was added on the south side of the farmhouse in the late C16 or early C17 extending beyond the end of the old work, the cellar and the floor-frame over in the eastern bay is mostly extant. By the C18 the long original roof needed rebuilding and a cart shed and west range was added to the end of the old double barn, two foldyards were formed on the south by a middle range. Both ranges were remodelled as part of a major C19 refurbishment of the farm buildings. The farmhouse was rebuilt with a new Palladian inspired east front and an access drive contrived around the southeast side of the farm. The three-bay front is reflected at basement level where the C16/C17 cellar was shortened to allow space for the new middle bay, under the paved entrance hall, the two new cellars were brick vaulted. When these improvements had been made the farmstead compares favourably with new mid-C19 model farms.