Barn, pigsties, boundary wall to W of barn, yard, trough, ramp and flanking walls, Mill House Farm, Rails Lane, Midgley, Luddenden, Halifax, Luddendenfoot, Calderdale

Summary

Combined barn, boundary wall, yard, stone trough, ramp and retaining walls, and pigsties dating to the third quarter of C19 and late C19, architect unknown.

Description

Combined barn, boundary wall, yard, stone trough, ramp and retaining walls, pigsties dating to the third quarter of C19 and late C19, architect unknown.

MATERIALS: millstone grit, slate, stone slate.

PLAN: a large, rectangular, combined barn on the N side, with attached pigsties at the E end, and a yard on the S side (the barn faces a coach house and cottage on the S side of the yard - which are not listed). The yard has a ramp down at its E end with a retaining wall on each side.

The combined barn has a full-height cart bay with cart entrance, with floored, two-storey bays to both sides. The ground floor on the W side is divided into two rooms with separate doorways, and on the E side is fitted out as a milking parlour. The pigsties have enclosed rooms with attached pens, covered except for the right-hand pen.

EXTERIOR

COMBINED BARN: the combined barn is constructed of regular courses of narrow, shaped and rock-faced blocks of millstone grit with ashlar dressings of chamfered blocks decorated with incised lines to form borders of tooled stone round panels of delicately pecked stone. It has chamfered quoining to the outer corners, an eaves table with a modillion cornice, and a hipped, slate roof. The front, S elevation faces into the yard. To left of centre is a large, segmental-arched cart entrance with a chamfered ashlar frame of alternating jamb stones, shaped impost blocks and voussiors with a keystone. The double doors are of diagonal boarding with metal sheeting applied to the lower halves. Above are paired, segmental-arched windows sharing a central mullion, with chamfered ashlar frames with shaped impost blocks and key stones. The windows have thin, timber cross-frames. Towards the left-hand end are two adjacent, segmental-arched doorways, both with similar ashlar frames to the cart entrance. The doors are of vertical boarding; the second door is a split, stable-type door with an upper light. High above the second doorway is an oculus with an ashlar frame of alternating blocks. To the right of the cart entrance is a segmental-arched doorway flanked by a segmental-arched window to each side, all with similar ashlar frames. High above each window is an ashlar-framed oculus.

The roadside, W side elevation has a row of three segmental-arched windows with similar, chamfered ashlar frames at ground-floor level. The windows have thin, timber cross-frames. In the centre, at first-floor level, is a similarly-sized segmental-arched, ashlar-framed opening with vertically boarded shutters. The E side elevation has a similar arrangement of three segmental-arched windows at ground-floor level and a central, segmental-arched opening at first-floor level with timber shutters. All have chamfered ashlar frames. The lower part of the elevation is obscured by the lean-to roof of the pigsties which abuts the combined barn at window-sill level. The rear, N elevation is blind.

PIGSTIES: the four pigsties are built of narrow, coursed blocks of rock-faced millstone grit with larger, tooled blocks forming doorframes and sills to openings. They share a stone slate, lean-to roof, cut back at the N end. The front elevation faces E with paired doorway openings, three with iron doors with strap hinges. There are horizontal openings beneath the roof-line with deep sills.

INTERIOR

COMBINED BARN: the building is of six structural bays with five massive queen post trusses with collars flanked by vertical posts with diagonal struts. The wood is machine-sawn and bolted to the tie beams. At each end the roof hip has three diagonal rafters, each with a vertical mid-post and diagonal strut. The roof slates are laid on roofing battens. There is a wide, full-height cart bay in structural bays two and three. The structural bays to each side are floored with deep, cast-iron I-beams supporting slimmer, closely-spaced, cast-iron I-joists on which stone flags are laid to form a first-floor level. At the W end the first floor is higher. The beams run along the building and are set into the exterior W wall and the internal, stone wall separating structural bay one from the cart bay. At the E end in bays four, five and six the I-beams run across the building with a particularly large, cross beam to the spine of the milking parlour supported at midpoint by a circular cast-iron column. The narrower cross beams to each side are supported by a series of slimmer, cast-iron columns which form the front and rear uprights of two rows of stall dividers. These have boarded half-height sides with cast-iron bound tops and bottoms. The stall's flooring and central area are now concreted with gullies, but the ironwork appears original to the structure supporting the first floor. A passageway in bay six has stone-flagged floors. The W end is separated by a masonry cross wall with a doorway with three steps up from the cart bay. There are two rooms, one behind the other with a passageway alongside, each with an external door. A modern, wide, multi-paned window has been inserted between the two. The rear room has hooks attached to the cast-iron joists. The floor has been concreted; the front room is partially stone flags and partially concreted. The cart bay has a stone-flagged floor. A small, modern workshop has been built at the rear, and a first floor has been inserted against the back wall at the same height as the lower floor at the E end. On the first floor there is a drive shaft attached to the brick–lined rear wall. The higher, stone-flagged floor on the W side has a moulded timber cornice along the junction with the masonry wall. There is a small area of breeze-blocks at first-floor level in the SE corner.

PIGSTIES: the pigsties have stone-flagged floors and pen dividers formed of large stone flags set vertically and bolted together.

SUBSIDIARY ITEMS:
The boundary wall between the road and combined barn has shaped and chamfered coping stones with incised lines forming borders of tooled stone to each side of continuous panels of delicately pecked stone.

The yard is paved in millstone grit setts with a ramp down at the E end flanked by coursed stone walls with similar chamfered coping with incised lines forming borders and pecked stone panels. There is a large, rectangular, stone trough on the N side of the yard, against the combined barn.

History

The property known as Mill House Farm is located on the E side of Rails Lane in the Luddenden Valley, with Mill House located on the W side. The latter house is early-mid C17 in origin (Grade II). Immediately to the N is Oats Royd House of 1645 with mid-C19 additions (Grade II) and Oats Royd Mills, a steam-powered worsted mill established in 1847 by the Murgatroyd family (with the majority of buildings listed Grade II). The small farm is not shown on the 1:10560 Ordnance Survey (OS) map published in 1854, but does appear on the 1:10560 OS map surveyed in 1888-93, published in 1894.

The first known plan of the farm dates from an estate sales map of 1879 when it is shown with a broadly analogous footprint. The larger, rectangular building is labelled ‘STABLE / BARN / MISTAL’, from W to E end, with a small, square outshot at the NE corner. The narrower building on the other side of the yard is labelled ‘COACH HOUSE’. The buildings stand in the corner of Rails Field, which was sold as Lot 23, described as ‘…The Rails Field, with the Barn, Stable, Mistal, Sheds and Cottages erected and built thereon, and containing an area, including the site of the buildings of 5a.3r.33p. or thereabouts’. The estate belonged to the Eastwood family, worsted spinners, who at this time lived in Mill House and owned Millhouse Mills and Pepper Hill Mills (both demolished). The sale was precipitated by the family’s bankruptcy in 1878. This plan indicates that the farm was built between 1854 and 1878. It would seem likely that the Eastwoods built it as the complex stands on their estate, bounded by the Murgatroyds’ estate on the N side of Rails Field. There are, however, similarities in the architectural detailing of the buildings and some mid-C19 buildings associated with Oats Royd House, notably the coach house approximately 10m NE of the main house and the stables and coach house approximately 10m N of the coach house. All use oculi with ashlar frames and eaves tables with modillion cornices. As the Eastwoods and the Murgatroyds were close neighbours it is possible that they shared a recommendation of an architect to undertake the work. Before c1880, the Murgatroyds are known to have used Thomas, then John, Dearden of Halifax as architects. Mill House Farm is clearly architect designed and so perhaps the Deardens were used, although this has not been proved.

The 1:2500 OS map published in 1894 shows that, as now, the combined barn building extended eastwards beyond the end of the yard, in the position of the pigsties. There were also two attached walled enclosures. At this time the coach house building (not listed) did not extend beyond the E end of the yard. By 1907 the complex had the same footprint as now. The combined barn no longer had the two eastern enclosures, but did have a small enclosure (not listed) on the S side of the three pigsty buildings. The E end of the coach house had been extended northwards into the yard and eastwards beyond the end of the yard to form a larger cottage and the outside WCs (not listed) are shown. There is also a small extension at its NW corner, adjacent to the road. The freestanding agricultural building (not listed) and walls forming an enclosure to the E of the combined barn is first shown on the 1933 OS map. The complex is not separately named on the historic OS maps, suggesting that it was subsidiary to Mill House in a similar way as the coach houses and stables, and other agricultural buildings of a similar date were to the neighbouring Oats Royd House.

The combined barn remained in continuous agricultural use until 2016. The westernmost stable was altered during the first half of C20 for use as an abattoir and then again in the mid-C20 for use as a dairy, when a concrete floor was also laid in the mistal to comply with standards of the time. The blind wall appears as original externally, but the brick skin internally indicates that it has been carefully rebuilt; the other walls remain as built. The coach house has been converted to a cottage and the later, roadside extension has been partially rebuilt to form an extra room.

Reasons for Listing

The combined barn, pigsties, section of boundary wall between the W end of the barn and the road, the yard, stone trough, ramp at the E end and flanking retaining walls at Mill House Farm, dating from the third quarter of the C19 and the late C19 are listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

* Architectural interest: the combined barn clearly demonstrates an architectural quality in its styling and attention to detail which raises this stone-built vernacular building to a greater level of sophistication and indicates that it was architect designed;

* Design: as a small, planned farmstead with the barn, yard and ramp and coped walls remaining intact and united by the use of materials and care in detailing, and including the in-part slightly later, stone-built pigsties for their intactness;

* Interior: the barn is unusual in its use of mill technology with cast-iron structures of I-beams, joists and circular columns used to support stone-flagged first floors to each side of the full-height cart bay;

* Group value: the farmstead, and notably the barn, benefits from group value due to its proximity to Mill House, to which it was most probably a home farm, and the buildings of Oats Royd Mill, some of which share similar architectural detailing, all of which are listed at Grade II.

External Links

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