Description

SX 48 SE MILTON ABBOT

7/213 Farmbuildings forming the farmyard
- to the north of Week farmhouse

II

Farmbuildings forming the farmyard to the north of Week farmhouse. Probably 1865
(datestone on Week Cottage) and built for the Duke of Bedford. Stone rubble with
greenstone dressings and slate roofs gabled at ends. A complete planned farmyard
organised round a central dunghouse. The power source is an overshot water wheel.
The west range consists of a shippon with 5 entrances under cut stone arches with a
cartshed adjoining at the south end with 4 entrances between ashlar stone piers. The
north range consists of a single-storey calf-house with a gable end entrance and
ventilation slits on the sides adjoining a 2-storey building containing a threshing
barn with loft over and a rear granary adjacent to the water wheel. The east range
is probably a fattening house with lofts over and is built into the slope of the land
to allow direct entrance to the lofts at the rear. The south range consists of a
small single-storey block with a small yard in front, said to have been used for
housing dogs, and a larger single-storey building, also with a walled yard. In the
centre of the yard is a dung house with a roof hipped at ends and, linked to the east
range by a covered roof, a fattening shed with a roof hipped at ends. The leat is
carried to the wheel in a timber trough carried on brick piers. The farmyard is very
complete with a number of characteristic Bedford Estate features including a timber
lining to most of the slate roofs. Week is the most complete C19 Bedford Estate
farmyard in the parish.
The 7th Duke of Bedford was a "devoted improver" (Spring) of the farms on the
Tavistock Estate and his policies and practices are described in David Spring, The
English Landed Estate in the Nineteenth Century (1963).

Listing NGR: SX4520481117

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26458501

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Pevsner's Architectural Glossary (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
• 
  Somerset: North and Bristol: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)