Grange Farm

Reasons for Designation

Grange Farm has been designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Grange Farm, a model farm built in 1878, represents a relatively intact example of a pioneering use of concrete construction in an agricultural context. * Grange Farm displays almost all the original elements of the model farm as it was designed in the late C19. * The farm retains an almost unique example of a military horse exercise area of a yeomanry regiment from the period of World War I.

Details

NORTHINGTON

70/0/10012 GRANGE FARM 06-OCT-09

II This is a model farm complex comprising agricultural and residential buildings, built in 1878, of Hampshire red brick and concrete block with slate roofs.

PLAN: The buildings are arranged in two abutting squares; the larger southern complex and an adjoining smaller projecting complex to the north. The south side of the southern complex has a range of stables and tack rooms at its south end; there is a cart and horse stalls and a grain silo to the west and the old farm offices and a farm house to the east. The north side of the southern square is composed of an old cow milking area. These four wings enclose a central area in which was installed a military horse exercise area. The smaller northern part of the complex has feed areas to the west. This part of the complex also encloses an open yard.

EXTERIOR: Red brick is reserved for the external facing parts of the complex which are on display and internal facing areas are built of concrete block. The south side of the farm complex was the main approach, and this facade has decorative elements including drain pipe hopper heads, stamped "A 1878". Window openings here have brick segmental arches and cement sills; the windows have elongated panes with iron mullions and transoms; the door openings have cement lintels. There is an archway at the east end of the south façade, also with a segmental arch. It has a slate roof. The north end of the complex is red brick with similar stamped drain pipes on the gable of the dairy. Windows in the dairy and farm house are cement mullion and transom with cement lintel and sills. The chimneys are ornamented with brickwork designs and pots.

INTERIOR: The interior of the farm buildings are mainly finished in cement block, except for the dairy which has a coloured tiled floor and walls of geometric and floral design, and ornate dragon and floral ironwork supports for the marble table which runs around the walls of the room. There is a large, central marble table in this room on a marble plinth. The roof of the military horse exercise area has a roof of steel angle-frame trusses, whilst the old milking area has an interesting roof of scrolled ironwork spans.

The interior of the farmhouse has a panelled staircase with closed string, carved square newel post, ball finial and turned mirror balusters. There are also two original fireplace surrounds on the first floor.

HISTORY: Grange Farm was built in 1878 for Alexander Baring, the 4th Lord Ashburton. This new model farm replaced earlier Manor Farm buildings which were located to the south of the present site of Grange Farm, and were mostly demolished before 1897. Between 1910 and 1914 Francis Baring, the 5th Lord Ashburton was an Honorary Colonel in the Hampshire Yeomanry, a regiment which was raised predominantly from local men. Lord Ashburton established a military horse exercise area in one of the yards at Grange Farm for the regiment which was stationed on the farm. This area was subsequently enclosed and has latterly been used for grain drying and storage.

Grange Farm provided food and domestic assistance for The Grange, and comprised a piggery, dairy and milking production, dry-food storage, stabling, an estate office, a laundry and a farm house which was known as 'The Homestead'. In the early 1930s Lord Ashburton sold the Estate including The Grange and Grange Farm, which were then owned by Mr LC Wallach until 1964 when the present owner, John Baring, 7th Lord Ashburton, re-purchased it. The Grange is now in the guardianship of English Heritage.

Some of the buildings of Grange Farm were demolished after a survey in 1987 including the piggery with its associated canopy, a yard and cart shed to the north. In the later C20 other structures were removed including the walls surrounding the rick yard and concrete silos to the west of the piggery. C20 additions have also been made including a lean-to covered yard adjacent to the dairy, laundry and an outbuilding added to the west of the stores and stables. It may be that the laundry building was an early change of use from an engine house attached to a two-storey barn or granary. The laundry was destroyed by fire in September 2009.

The five farms of the estate are now occupied by agricultural tenant farmers and are managed and farmed through the Baring family partnership, 'Itchen Stoke Estates'. The partnership has reviewed its management and farming practices, and as part of this programme has found that Grange Farm is no longer suitable for modern dairy or grain storing activities. At the time of inspection, these facilities had been relocated elsewhere on the estate, with Grange Farm left mostly unused.

The horse exercise area is a significant historical relic from its local yeomanry connections. The yeomanry was the cavalry element of the Territorial Force, established in 1908, but drawing on previous militia and volunteer units. The Hampshire Yeomanry can trace its origins to the late 1700s when William Pitt the Younger, concerned about the size of a large French revolutionary army, proposed that the English Counties form a force of Volunteer Yeoman Cavalry that could be called on by the King to defend the country against invasion or subdue civil disorder. During the First World War the Hampshire Yeomanry served on the Western Front and in Ireland. The survival of the horse exercise area is a rare survival of a period when local landowners were involved in the leadership of such local forces. There is no other such survival known nationally.

SOURCES: Christopher C Stanley, Highlights in The History of Concrete (1980) pp18-21. Historic Farmsteads. Preliminary Character Statement: South East Region (2006) p19. Susanna Wade Martins, The English Model Farm. Building the Agricultural Ideal (2002), 1700-1914.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: Grange Farm is designated at Grade II for the following principal reasons: * Grange Farm, a model farm built in 1878, represents a relatively intact example of a pioneering use of concrete construction in an agricultural context. * The Farm displays almost all the original elements of the model farm as it was designed in the late C19. * The farm retains an almost unique example of a military horse exercise area of a yeomanry regiment from the period of World War I.

Legacy

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

Legacy System number:

505191

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Historic Farmsteads. Prelimary Character Statement: South East Region, (2004)
Wade Martins, S, The English Model Farm, Building the Agricultural Ideal, 1700-1914, (2002)
Stanley, C, Highlights in the History of Concrete, (1979)

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