Thursday, February 7, 2013

Coleshill Model Farm

Innovation was the
order of the day at Coleshill when work began on revamping the Earl of Radnor’s
home farm.

The previous
farmstead had already received the seal of approval from radical politician
William Cobbett, who brought rural poverty to the attention of 19th century parliament.

“I saw also at
Coleshill, the most complete farmyard that I ever saw, and I believe there is
in all England, many and complete as English farm yards are,” Cobbett wrote on
a fact finding ride across southern
England in 1826.

“And here, too,
there is no misery amongst those who do the work,” Cobbett noted when he
stopped off to view the Locust trees the Earl of Radnor had brought from him
twenty years previously. “Here all are
comfortable; gaunt hunger here stares no man in the face.”

The idea of this
efficient, split level farmstead came from the Earl of Radnor’s land agent but
it was architect George Lamb who designed the ground breaking farmstead. Building work on the Coleshill Home Farm was
begun by William Pedley, a Highworth carpenter, builder and bricklayer. With a thirty week window in which to
complete the project the unfortunate Mr Pedley failed, losing both the contract
and his business in the process and another builder was called in to complete
the work.

Built in 1854, the
300 acre model farm at Coleshill implemented innovative design and labour
saving devices during a period of agricultural prosperity. The energy saving design of the model farm
made the best use of gravity and included a tramway to distribute feed around
the various buildings and manure to the midden.

The farm buildings
were designed for mixed farming – grain, root crops, cattle, pigs and sheep. An
enthusiastic pig breeder, the design of the piggery was of particular
importance to the Earl. Well ventilated
with louvered windows to minimise disease, the pigs' accommodation at Coleshill
was second to none. Lambs were fattened
in stalls with wooden slatted floors, a method which came back into fashion
again 100 years later.

The centre piece of
the farmstead was the granary with a mixing room below where the roots and
straw were chopped and the grain crushed by steam powered machinery and then
fed into stores by a chute system. Built
from local Cotswold rubble, the building sported guttering, drain pipes and
labour saving sliding doors.

Ernest Cook,
grandson of probably the best known and earliest travel agent, Thomas Cook,
bought the estate at Coleshill and Buscot from the Pleydell-Bouverie family in
1946 leaving it to the National Trust on his death in 1955.

Production on the
farm ended in the 1970s but the farmstead remains intact, an example of a 19th century revolution in agricultural practices which paved the way for modern
methods.

A survey of
Wiltshire’s historic farmsteads is being conducted by the Wiltshire Buildings
Record project based at the History Centre in Chippenham. Volunteers record details of the farmsteads
through the use of photography, sketches and historical research, a copy of
which is presented to the farmer on completion. Visit the website on

Good Gentlewoman

This blog began life as Status, Scandal and Subterfuge, a story about the St John ladies of Lydiard Park, Wiltshire. However, the Ladies have proved so fascinating that I have extended my research to other branches of the family and launched this new website Good Gentlewoman.