Barwickstead hennery-piggery, Beckermet, Cumbria

Entry Name: Barwickstead hennery-piggery

Listing Date: 21 December 2020

Grade: II

Source: Historic England

Source ID: 1473208

ID on this website: 101473208

Location: Beckermet, Cumberland, Cumbria, CA21

County: Cumbria

District: Copeland

Civil Parish: Beckermet

Built-Up Area: Beckermet

Traditional County: Cumberland

Lieutenancy Area (Ceremonial County): Cumbria

Tagged with: Agricultural structure

Summary

Hennery-piggery, 1858.

Description

Hennery-piggery, 1858.

MATERIALS: random red sandstone with dressed red sandstone dressings and a Lakeland stone slate roof.

PLAN: a detached, rectangular building.

EXTERIOR: not inspected, information from other sources. The tall, narrow, stone two-storey building has dressed sandstone dressings, beneath a pitched roof of graduated local slate. The east gable faces onto the main street and has an applied render with exposed stone verges, water tables and an ornate stone finial to the apex. The first floor is lit by a rectangular window with a hood mould with label stops; the ground floor is blind. The south elevation has a blind upper floor with a pair of ground floor pig-sty openings. The latter give access to a pair of pig pens defined by stone walls with flat copings (double-chamfered to the roadside), and original fleur-de-lis cast-iron railings are retained to the most westerly pen. The south wall of each pen is pierced by a large, rectangular lift-up feeding hatch with boarded doors with strap hinges; each hatch also retains a solid stone trough, and the most westerly pen has a second boarded door. At the south-east corner there is a shaped gate pier and a narrow stone stair. The west gable has a tall pointed-arched opening to the first floor, that retains a boarded door, and is reached by a two-flight set of stone steps with a space beneath probably used as a dog kennel.

INTERIOR: not inspected, information from other sources. The external pig pens retain graded flagged floors with a central gutter. The loft above the pigsty is a single space open to the original roof structure which has triangular trusses and rafters and timber floor joists and boards; the single window has splayed reveals.

History

Beckermet developed from the late C17 as an agricultural village with linear farmsteads strung out along its main road. Barwickstead was constructed in 1858 as a prestigious planned farmstead comprising a farmhouse with walled garden, a barn and a pig and hen house (a hennery-piggery). Its layout illustrates the more hierarchical arrangements of the C19, with the farmhouse being physically separated from the barns and ancillary buildings. A hennery-piggery, sometimes called a poultiggery, is a combined stone-built hen house and piggery. It housed pigs on the ground floor and hens were kept in a loft above; it was thought that the hens would keep the pigs warm and the pigs would frighten away predators such as foxes. The hennery-piggery is present on the first edition 1:10,560 Ordnance Survey (OS) map surveyed in 1861 (published 1867) with the same footprint as the present day.

Reasons for Listing

This hennery-piggery, of mid-C19 date, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a handsome and intact hennery-piggery of good architectural quality, detailing and materials reflecting its higher status context;
* a good example of an increasingly rare form of small multi-functional animal housing nationally;
* it retains its original two-level layout with attached privy, and its original form and function are easily readable;
* a farm building type characteristic of this region, which illustrates the diversity of past farming practice in England.

External Links

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.