Stevens Farm House, 2 Stevens Farm and Stevens Cottage

Summary

Stevens Farm has origins in at least the eighteenth century. The present buildings are largely of the mid-nineteenth century, having been rebuilt and/or refronted, with subdivision and unification reflecting an evolving agricultural economy and changing modes of use.

Reasons for Designation

The building complex comprising Stevens Farm House, Stevens Cottage and 2 Stevens Farm is listed at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:

Architectural interest:

* a good quality, stone-built farmhouse and pair of cottages which form a coherent and legible ensemble, displaying an architectural hierarchy across the building complex, and reflecting the status of the farm and its inhabitants in the mid-C19;
* a polite principal façade of some architectural pretension, diminishing to a more modest treatment on the return elevations and cottages, which share architectural detailing;
* retaining a significant proportion of historic fabric, which provides evidence of the plan form and features of a farmhouse of the period, the evolution of the building complex, and the relationship with the farmworkers’ cottages to the rear.

Group value:

* for its strong visual relationship with neighbouring listed buildings.

History

The earliest known reference to Stevens Farm is on the survey map ‘Four Farms in the Parish of Winterborne St Martin… the property of William Pitt Esq’, 1769. The map shows a building with the approximate footprint of the existing farmhouse and rear cottages, though both have been rebuilt, or partially rebuilt, in separate phases. A datestone on the rear range records the initials of landowner Charles Hawkins, and a date of reconstruction of 1837. The adjoining farmhouse appears to have been rebuilt subsequently, probably in the mid-C19. The Tithe map (1841) shows the farmhouse as a rectangular range, and the apportionment shows that it was in separate ownership to the attached cottages. The 1889 Ordnance Survey map is the first to show the farmhouse with its existing L-shaped footprint. It appears that the southern part of 2 Stevens Farm was then part of the farmhouse; the party wall line is shown further north than existing, and contains a blocked doorway on the first floor. The very small window adjacent suggests it may have lit a small room, since incorporated into 2 Stevens Farm.

Sales particulars from 1932 describe the building complex at that time. The farmhouse, which then included the dwelling now known as Stevens Cottage, had ‘three reception rooms and usual domestic offices’ and ‘eight good bedrooms, with extra suitable for bath, etc’. Stone-built cottages, each with two bedrooms, living room and back kitchen are also described. The farmhouse was subdivided subsequently, and the two cottages adjoining the farmhouse were converted to a single dwelling in around 1978. At around the same time, Stevens Farm Lodge was built, replacing cottages and ancillary buildings to the north, and the agricultural buildings to the west were converted to domestic use.

Details

Farmhouse, mid-C19, subdivided in the mid- to late-C20, and attached cottage, 1837, converted from a pair in 1978.

MATERIALS: squared, snecked limestone with ashlar dressings to the front elevation, and roughly coursed rubble to the sides and rear. Brick dressings to side and rear windows. Slate roofs and red brick chimneystacks.

PLAN: Stevens Farm House and Stevens Cottage have an L-shaped footprint; one range runs roughly east-west in line with the road, with an intersecting range to the south-west. No 2 Stevens Farm, formerly a pair of cottages, stands adjacent to the north.

EXTERIOR: the farmhouse has been subdivided into two dwellings; Stevens Farm House stands to the west, and Stevens Cottage to the east. It is a two-storey building with hipped roofs and boxed eaves. The principal, south-facing elevation has a projecting wing on the west, with two windows to each floor. The main front door is recessed in the angle, with a stair window above. The range to the east has two further window bays with a central doorway to Stevens Cottage. Openings have ashlar jambs and flat keyed lintels with stone sills. Two-light timber casements with glazing bars to Stevens Farm House, and C20 casements in original openings with depressed arch heads to Stevens Cottage. Stevens Farm House has a flush and recess panel door with two top lights, and Stevens Cottage has C20 panel and glazed door. Ashlar quoins to the principal elevation. West return elevation with wide window openings with segmental arched heads with stone voussoirs, and plank door with over-light. Later openings with concrete lintels. Rear of Stevens Cottage with irregular openings with brick arches; window formed from blocked doorway. Extension to rear is now part of Stevens Cottage, though appears to have originally served 2 Stevens Farm, and was in place by 1889. Rear of Stevens Farm House has one first floor opening with full brick architrave, and an inserted opening to the ground floor.

2 Stevens Farm abuts the rear (north) of Stevens Farm House. Built as two cottages in 1837, replacing earlier buildings on the same footprint. The west is now the principal elevation of 2 Stevens Farm, though was formerly the rear, opening onto a small walled garden. Each cottage had a wide segmental-arched, brick-lined window, as on the rear of the farmhouse, and a doorway on the ground floor, and a window above, with a central datestone with a brick surround, inscribed ‘C H / 1837’. In the conversion to a single dwelling in the 1970s, and as part of the construction of the garages and Stevens Farm Lodge, the doorway to the northern cottage was enveloped behind a porch. The east elevation faces onto a yard. The lean-to, now part of Stevens Cottage, envelopes the ground floor of the southern side of the building; on the northern side are a doorway, a window formed from blocked doorway, and a small window, all within arched brick openings. Two wide and one very small window to the first floor. Northern gable showing scars in the masonry of earlier buildings. Roof hipped with the main range of the farmhouse, with a gable to the northern end. Central brick stack rebuilt in 1978.

INTERIOR: in Stevens Farm House an entrance hall leads to the lounge and kitchen. The lounge has panelled window openings with shutters. The kitchen has a wide chimneybreast with chamfered stone bressummer, partially under-built in brick. Stair with turned newels, moulded handrail and stick balusters. On the first floor a stone chimneypiece survives in one bedroom. Panelled doors throughout.

Stevens Cottage has two principal rooms on the ground floor with a shared chimneystack. Large inglenook blocked in eastern room. Blocked doorway into the farmhouse in the western room, and on the first floor. Six-panel doors to ground floor, with moulded architraves. Reconfigured plan on first floor; thick transverse wall with chimneybreast.

2 Stevens Farm, formed from a pair of cottages, has two principal ground-floor rooms with a small kitchen to the north-east. Central chimneystack with a large fireplace opening on either side rebuilt in brick in 1970s, and the deep bressumers, ceiling beam and stair of the same phase. Splayed window openings in first-floor rooms. Roof with pegged king-post trusses, trenched purlins and narrow ridge piece; some replacement rafters.

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

106018

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Websites
Stevens Farm and Stevens Cottage, Main Road, Winterborne St Martin, ref MDO23742, Dorset HER, accessed 23/10/25 from https://www.heritagegateway.org.uk/Gateway/Results_Single.aspx?uid=MDO23742&resourceID=1012

Other
Dorset History Centre, D-ENS/F1/2039, Particulars of sale of Stevens Farm Martinstown with plan, 1933
Dorset History Centre, Ph/714, Survey of Benjamin Pryce of four farms in Winterborne St Martin, 1769

End of official list entry

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