Wappingthorn Farm Dairy Buildings, Including Silo Towers, Linking Wall and Circular Dairy

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STEYNING

957/0/10041 HORSHAM ROAD 21-APR-05 Wappingthorn Farm Dairy Buildings, inc luding silo towers, linking wall and c ircular dairy

II Model dairy farm buildings. Designed by Maxwell Ayrton FRIBA for Sir Arthur Howard in 1929-30. Some later C20 alterations. These buildings are particularly unusual for the use of concrete as an architectural rather than merely structural function. Brown brick in header or English bond with concrete towers, linking wall and columns, tiled roofs (part formerly thatched). Mainly one storey with mainly pivoting metal multipane casement windows. PLAN: Roughly rectangular complex of cow sheds, milking parlours, silo towers with linking wall and open-fronted barn with attached circular dairy to the west. EXTERIOR: Dairy is a circular building of one storey of header bond brickwork surrounded by eight feet high columns, one foot high in diameter at the base and one foot six inches at the head, made of rust-coloured aggregate and two further columns on either side to link block. Conical roof, originally thatched but replaced after the Second World War with concrete Broseley tiles, surmounted by an octagonal tiled lantern with wooden louvres. The two windows have been replaced by later C20 uPVC casements and the formerly open link block closed in at the sides in stretcher bond brickwork. The remainder of the complex is mainly of one storey brown brick in English bond but includes concrete silo towers and linking wall in the centre of the south front and a series of concrete columns to an open-fronted barn to the north west. The silo towers and linking wall are made of a well-compacted 1:2:2 mix by volume of concrete showing the lines of the two feet by six inch lift used to form the structures. The two towers are tall roughly octagonal tapering structures with shuttered ventilation openings at the top and conical tiled roofs with metal finials. The parapet to the central linking concrete wall has half-round ridge tiles set in concrete, clock face with gabled weather canopy over, three half round ridge tiles as a decorative feature on each side and wide entrance with tiled canopy. INTERIOR: Dairy retains the original white tiles with a blue tiled band at the top and original slate shelf. Apart from the milking parlour to the south west the other parts of the building were not inspected internally.

A rare example of an Inter-War model dairy farm particularly unusual for its pioneering use of concrete construction used architecturally rather than just structurally by a noted practitioner, Maxwell Ayrton.

[Article by J Gilchrist Wilson in "Concrete Quarterly" Oct-Dec. 1964.]

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

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491429

Legacy System:

LBS

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