Reasons for Designation
The house, attached outbuilding and threshing barn at Moorfields Farm have been designated at Grade II, for the following principal reasons:
* Moorfields Farmhouse is a substantially intact later C18 farmstead, the elements of which form a good group, with clearly legible functions
* The farmhouse retains its plan, circulation and most of its historic fabric, with some good details, such as chamfered ceiling beams, joinery and doors of the C18, and retains its dairy and pantry unconverted
* The attached outbuilding has a first-floor cheese room with whitewashed walls and ceiling and some cheese racks remaining; it also retains its ground-floor partitions and layout as an agricultural building
* The threshing barn is a good, C18 timber-framed structure which is almost completely unaltered and demonstrates good quality in its construction
Details
TAYNTON
516/0/10017 Farmhouse, Agricultural Building with
22-JUN-09 Cheeseroom, and Threshing Barn at Moor
fields Farm
GV II
A farmstead, largely dating from the later C18, including a house, agricultural building with cheeseroom and a threshing barn. The other buildings on the site, dating from the very end of the C19 and the C20, are not of special interest.
PLAN: The barn and the agricultural building with a cheese room are set at right angles, forming the northern and western sides of a loose farmyard, bounded to the east by the remains of earlier shelter sheds. The house is set further to the west, oriented east-west.
HOUSE: The farmhouse dates from the later C18, is constructed in red brick with a plain clay tile roof, and is a double-pile building. The plan has a central entrance hall with rooms off to left and right, and service rooms to the rear.
EXTERIOR: The main elevation is of two storeys and three bays, with a C20 porch over the entrance doorway, flanked by segmental-headed rectangular window openings, currently containing replacement windows. There is brick cogging to the eaves, and gable end stacks with external chimney breasts. To the east is a single-bay extension with a lower roof than the main range, and a later lean-to extension across the bay. To the rear of the main range are similar window openings to those in the main elevation, these retaining their C19 timber casements, some with rectangular leaded panes. The ground floor has a wide door opening towards the west end. There are further additions to the rear of the eastern extension.
INTERIOR: The C20 entrance porch gives access to the original entrance doorway with a fanlight. The hall has a terracotta tiled floor and a modest closed-string stair with moulded handrail, mid-C19 in date, and panelled doors to the principal rooms. The doorcases throughout the house retain C18 mouldings, with C18 panelled doors to the principal rooms and plank and batten doors of the same date elsewhere. The rear range retains its dairy, with stone work surfaces and ventilation; its pantry with similar surfaces, and kitchen, with a C19 range. All the rooms on the ground floor have chamfered ceiling beams with lamb's tongue stops. Two of the first floor rooms to the main ranges have small, cast-iron fireplaces. The roof of the rear range has trusses formed from large-section, lapped principal rafters with single purlins and queen struts, all pegged. The extension to the west has storage or food processing rooms to the ground floor and a large C19 fireplace and chimney breast, now boxed in.
AGRICULTURAL BUILDING: This is set with its gable end towards the front of the plot, and runs north-south. The ground floor is constructed from coursed rubble stone with large stone quoins, and the upper part from brick with cogging to the long elevation.
EXTERIOR: The southern range is of one and a half storeys, and the northern end a single storey range. The one and a half storey range has a flight of external stone steps giving access to the first floor cheese room, which retains some of its cheese racks, its queen-strut roof and an unglazed timber window with diamond mullions, now partly open to the roof space of the lower range behind.
INTERIOR: The ground floor has a wide doorway now reached from the lobby of the extension to the house, which leads into the agricultural portion of the building. There is a timber partition dividing a bay at the south, with an open shed beyond; both are whitewashed, indicating the shed may have been used for milking. The ceiling has a large-section chamfered beam with lamb's tongue scroll. The shed to the north has a wide, double doorway at its north end and has a later concrete floor and mangers.
BARN: This is a C18 four-bay threshing barn, which is constructed from square timber framing with brick infill.
EXTERIOR: There are cruciform ventilation holes in all elevations, with decorative patterns in the gable ends. The roof is covered in plain clay tile. The threshing floor has wide, opposing double doors and pennant sandstone kerbs to either side.
INTERIOR: The western bay is floored, with a very heavy chamfered ceiling beam and inserted stone wall to the eastern end of the bay. The south side has later doorways inserted into the ceiled bay. The internal framing is largely intact, with a roof formed from trusses of paired principal rafters, tie beam set on jowled posts, twin trenched purlins and queen struts. There are angled wind braces to the end bays.
HISTORY: The site appears to have originated in the later C18, with a double-pile farmhouse running east-west. An agricultural building incorporating a first-floor cheese room was situated a little to the east, and a threshing barn to its north east, with a further range of agricultural buildings running north-south across the eastern end of the threshing barn, probably incorporating shelter shed facing. The farmstead thus consisted of ranges on three sides of a loose courtyard, with a detached house to its west. During the C19, the house received some minor modifications, including new windows in segmental-arched openings and the insertion of some C19 fireplaces, and an extension, in two phases, linking the house with the agricultural building to its east. During the later C20, the farm was further expanded by the addition of a detached, two-storey dairy, with storage room over, to the south of the range adjoining the threshing barn, and an agricultural building, probably a shelter shed, to the west. By the mid-C20, the C18 range of buildings to the south of the threshing barn had clearly become dilapidated, and a steel-framed, asbestos-roofed barn was added to cover the farmyard, as well as the shelter sheds. Further lean-to sheds were added to the buildings, as well as repairs and infill to parts of the other agricultural buildings. The farm remained in use until the early C21.
REASONS FOR DESIGNATION:
The house, attached outbuilding and threshing barn at Moorfields Farm are recommended for designation in Grade II, for the following principal reasons:
* Moorfields Farmhouse is a substantially intact later C18 farmstead, the elements of which form a good group, with clearly legible functions
* The farmhouse retains its plan, circulation and most of its historic fabric, with some good details, such as chamfered ceiling beams, joinery and doors of the C18, and retains its dairy and pantry unconverted
* The attached outbuilding has a first-floor cheese room with whitewashed walls and ceiling and some cheese racks remaining; it also retains its ground-floor partitions and layout as an agricultural building
* The threshing barn is a good, C18 timber-framed structure which is almost completely unaltered and demonstrates good quality in its construction
