Cowhouse at Tidbury Green Farm

Summary

A cowhouse, dating from the C18 with remodelling in the C19, used latterly as a milking shed.

Reasons for Designation

The cowhouse at Tidbury Green Farm is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* Architectural interest: the cowhouse is good and substantially complete example of vernacular farm building whose function is clearly evident in its historic fabric;
* Group value: as part of a functionally-related group from an important period in the development of English agriculture;
* Historic interest: the farm buildings illustrate the character and development of regional farming traditions within the context of the overall national patterns in farming history;
* Rarity: the group is a reminder of the formerly agricultural nature of the West Midlands, prior to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution;
* Degree of survival: the cowhouse survives very well.

History

Tidbury Green Farm, a loose courtyard farm, has origins in the C17, and the current farmhouse dates originally from this period. It may have begun as a timber-framed house, in common with the majority of farms in the area, and later have been encased in brick; some of the internal joinery clearly dates from the C17, and there is evidence of timber framing with stone infill in the attics, but the exterior brickwork is indicative of a date in the late C18 or early C19, both stylistically and from the appearance of the bricks. The house underwent some updating internally in the C18 and the C19. The tithe map of 1840 shows the house, barn and a building on the site of the cowhouse, which follows the footprint of the existing building but with additions to the front at either end, not now extant. A row of pigsties with its attendant pens were added between 1884 and 1904, in which year it is shown for the first time on the 1:2500 Ordnance Survey. At this point, the farm, along with a number of others in the locality, was part of the estate of Henry Aylesbury Walker Aylesbury, who died in 1905, but whose estate was retained until the First World War. A large part of the estate was sold by auction in 1917, including Tidbury Green Farm, which was purchased by its tenant farmer. The farm buildings, which share an estate style, are shown on a plan accompanying the sales particulars, and described briefly: the house of brick and tile, with the rooms detailed, including an attic cheese room, outbuildings, well and garden; and the farm buildings, comprising a four-stall stable, double-bay barn, five-tie cowhouse and calf pen, seven-tie cowhouse, three pigsties and an implement shed. All these buildings survive today, though the former implement shed has been altered several times and now exists only as a roof over a series of brick piers, rather than the open-fronted shed shown on the 1917 plan and the earlier Ordnance Survey maps, which show that it had opposite sides infilled and opened at various times.

During the C20, some minor alterations were made to the buildings, including the insertion of a new ground-floor fireplace in the house, and some cosmetic changes, including the replacement of some of the windows in uPVC; and a shed was added extending at right angles from the long rear elevation of the barn. During the Second World War, a stray bomb landed to the east of the farm, causing the eastern gable end chimney to fall from the house; the apex of the gable and the stack were rebuilt. The farm remained in the same family’s ownership until the time of inspection in 2016.

Details

A cowhouse, dating from the C18 with remodelling in the C19, used latterly as a milking shed.

MATERIALS: red brick with plain clay tile roof.

PLAN: a long rectangular plan, running N-S, divided into two ranges.

EXTERIOR: the building is a single storey, in two ranges. To the S (left), the range has a wide central doorway with a C20 door, flanked by small, square, fixed-pane windows dating from the C20. The eaves have brick cogging. The N range (right) has a wider, central double doorway with C20 doors in an earlier brick doorway, flanked by rectangular, fixed-pane windows set within rebuilt walls. The gable ends have brick cogging running up to the apex, with a small, square window in the gable.

INTERIOR: the interior of each range is a single space, with a wide, brick-built channel in the floor, and painted and plastered walls. The pegged roof trusses are made from large-section timber, limewashed. They are formed from chamfered tie beams, principal rafters which curve around the ends of a short collar and are slightly truncated above, and angled queen struts. The single purlins rest on the principals and carry common rafters to a ridge plank.

Sources

Other
Sales particulars from 1917, in the archive of the owners of the building
CR0328/44 Warwickshire Record Office: Solihull tithe map, 1840

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