Description

LITTLEDEAN

502/10/74 CHURCH STREET
04-AUG-06 (East side)
CHURCH FARM HOUSE AND MALTINGS

GV II
A farmhouse, dating from the late C17 or early C18, with attached malting ranges. The house is of squared, coursed local stone, with a slate roof and ashlar gable stacks. The house is L-shaped on plan, the front range of single depth, with the earliest of the maltings adjoining the rear range and extending it eastwards.
EXTERIOR : The main elevation (west) is of three bays, two storeys and attic. There is a plain string course above the ground and first floor window heads, and moulded stone eaves are taken up the slopes of the triangular central gable. The window openings have splayed stone voussoirs with projecting keystones and eight-over-eight pane sashes, those to the ground floor with louvred shutters. The gable has a circular window with alternate keystones projecting. The central entrance has a six-panel raised and fielded door under a plain shell hood with pulvinated frieze on carved brackets, with lead covering.
INTERIOR : The entrance hall is stone-paved, and retains its panelled doors to the principal rooms. The dog-leg stair is in situ; it has turned balusters and is of full-string type.
The two malthouses and small building linking them form three sides of a courtyard, with the fourth side comprising the rear elevation of the farmhouse. The earlier malthouse is an extension of the northern wing of the farmhouse, and dates in two phases from the late C17 or early C18, and the later C18 to early C19.
MALTHOUSE NO. 1
EXTERIOR : Malthouse No.1 is of two storeys and an attic, with scattered fenestration, built of limewashed stone rubble. The apex roof is covered in clay pantiles. The windows are two-light, four pane side hung timber casements of varying sizes. Doors are C18 plank doors with wrought iron door furniture. The first floor is accessed by an external stone staircase with iron baluster, running parallel to the front of the building. The building was developed towards the east, and the kiln was sited at the far eastern end of the building, which has a louvred cowl above the kiln chimney.
INTERIOR : The ground floor has been divided into three rooms, one of which retains part of its lime mortar growing floor. The second has been altered to create an open front, with inserted steel lintel. These rooms have massive chamfered beams with plain run out stops, roughly hewn and showing adze marks. The third room is the ground floor of the kiln, converted in the early C20 to a farm abattoir, having had its furnace and drying floor removed, and with an inserted timber beam across its width. The first floor consists of a growing floor with lime mortar surface surviving, and the remains of a partition in the form of timber uprights. This floor has the same massive timber beams with chamfers and run out stops as the ground floor. These have stencilled malting numbering. There is a door into the kiln which would have been used to move the germinated barley to the drying floor. The attic floor is of timber. The roof structure is of simple trusses, with staggered, threaded purlins and heavy principal rafters.
MALTHOUSE NO.2
EXTERIOR : Malthouse No.2 is situated to the south of Malthouse No.1, and the two are linked by a building running north-south from the south of the kiln to the north of Malthouse No.2. This link building is open at the ground floor to allow access to the farmyard beyond, and the first floor comprises part of the growing floor of Malthouse No.2, which is thus L-shaped. Malthouse No.2 is rectangular on plan, built of limewashed stone rubble, of three bays, with two-light side hung timber casements, and a roof of clay pantile. The first floor is accessed by a flight of stone steps to the west.
INTERIOR : The ground floor has a stone flag surface with a drainage channel running along its length towards the northern side. The walls are lime plastered with three moulded rush light holders on either side. There are large timber beams with chamfers and plain run out stops; a hatch gives access to the first floor. The windows to this and the upper floor have internal timber plank shutters with wrought iron hinges. The first floor has a timber floor, and the remains of machinery which may be a winch, towards the eastern end; it is open to the roof. The roof is of king-post structure, with a complex dragon beam arrangement where the building turns the corner into the first floor of the link building. There is stencilled malting numbering to the beams.

HISTORY: Church Farm House, to which the earlier range of the maltings is attached, dates from at least the first quarter of the C18. The current main front may have been built onto an existing house in 1725. The earlier range of the maltings may date from the late C17 or early C18, and so may be of the same date and build as the house to which they are attached. This first, northern malthouse was subsequently extended, no later than the C18, and in the late C18 or early C19 a new malthouse was constructed to the south, and a north-south link between the two was built in order to enable the existing kiln to be employed with the second malthouse. All the buildings were in place in their current forms by the time the tithe map was drawn up in 1839, and have remained unchanged since, as shown on all three epochs of the OS maps for Littledean. Malting continued on the site into the C19, and after that the malting buildings became agricultural storage.

Summary of Importance: All buildings dating from before 1840 which survive largely intact merit consideration for listing. Church Farm House is a good, early C18 and earlier farmhouse with a handsome, classically inspired exterior and some good interior details. The Maltings at Church Farm are a largely intact farm malting complex dating from the late C17 or early C18, and the later C18 to early C19. The malting complex shows the requisite level of intact survival and clear demonstration of function to merit their designation with the house. The malthouses are well built and survive with most of their original features associated with their function, including the kiln with its chimney and cowl, lime mortar growing floors and malting numbering, combined with good quality joinery and few later alterations.

SOURCES : Patrick, A : The Malthouse attached to Church Farm, Littledean, Gloucestershire, in Journal of the Gloucestershire Society of Industrial Archaeology, 1997.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26481724

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

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