The Byre, Milton Street

Summary

Byre, early C19.

Reasons for Designation

The Byre, Milton Street, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: an early C19 farm building constructed of local materials in a variety of local flints (rough, knapped or interspersed with bricks) which survives substantially intact;
* Interior features: the interior retains a wooden feeding rack along the whole length of the back wall and a wooden feeding trough below it. There are vestiges of stall partitions, two large wooden harness hooks and a cobbled floor;
* Rarity of building type: it is likely to have housed a plough team of oxen; such teams survived in use longer on the South Downs than in other areas;
* Group value and landscape setting: part of a farmstead of medieval origins of which the farmhouse and dovecote are already listed. The farmstead is highly visible with the South Downs National Park.

History

This building was formerly a byre belonging to Milton Street Farm. The farmhouse dates from 1450 and belonged to the Dumbrell Family until the C21. The byre is situated to the north-west of the farmhouse adjoining Milton Street and is north of the former barn and granary to the farm.

For a time the farm was occupied by the painter, biographer and collector Sir Roland Penrose (1900-1984) and his wife the famous model and war photographer Lee Miller. Picasso visited the house in the 1960s.

The byre is shown on the First Edition 25 inch Ordnance Survey map of 1874 to its present extent and on subsequent editions without any change in outline.

In the early C21 The Byre became separately owned from the farmhouse.

Details

DATE: the building was probably mainly constructed in the early C19 but incorporates some earlier fabric in its south west corner. External doors and some window mullions were replaced in the early C21.

MATERIALS: it is constructed of flint, knapped and unknapped, with red brick quoins and slate roof.

PLAN: it is a single-storey three-bay structure.

EXTERIOR: the east or entrance front has off-central ledged and braced wooden double doors and a cambered opening with a wooden pegged architrave and wooden shutters further north. The wall north of the double doors has rough flints with a single brick course halfway up. The wall to the south of the double doors has knapped flint up to two thirds of the height, then a course of red brick and above that knapped flints. The southern corner has some earlier two-inch bricks and a flat stone possibly reused from a local medieval site. The south wall has a wooden pedestrian entrance at the eastern end and a high level opening with restored mullions. The lowest third of the west side is constructed of knapped flints. Above is a section constructed with alternate upended brick stretchers flanked by knapped flints. The top section has a number of courses of brickwork laid mainly in English garden wall bond. There is a blocked opening to the north. The north side is mainly concealed by a wooden lean-to addition.

INTERIOR: the roof is a C19 kingpost roof of three bays with clasped purlins and iron ties. There is a wooden feeding rack along the whole length of the west wall and a wooden feeding trough below it at the north end. There are vestiges of three wooden stall partitions and some gaps in the feeding rack indicate that there may have been three other stall partitions originally. The east wall contains two large projecting wooden hooks probably for hanging harnesses. The floor is cobbled.

End of official list entry

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