Worcestershire Farmsteads

Traditional Farmsteads and Landscapes

Traditional farmsteads and outfarms reflect local ‘vernacular’ traditions and national influences, and include some built to the designs of agents, architects and engineers. They display an immense variation in their scale, layout, architectural form and use of materials, and the way that buildings of different dates and functions relate to yards, other spaces and the surrounding landscape and settlement.

Most traditional buildings date from the 19th century and, in most areas, few were built after the 1880s. They will often display evidence of successive episodes of change. A small number continued to be built for individual farmers, estates and county council smallholdings into the 1930s.

From the late 19^th century prefabricated and standardised industrial buildings were regularly built on the site of an older farmstead or to one side, often with separate access. So-called Dutch barns, built of metal or machine-sawn timber, were built from the 1870s and had become common in some areas by the 1930s. Machine-made brick was commonly used in the inter-war period, in combination with metal roofs, windows and concrete floors for dairies. Multi-functional sheds and their associated hardstandings for vehicles and moving stock, were widely introduced in the 1950s and are a vital feature of the modern farming industry.

Site survey and the comparison of historic with modern Ordnance Survey maps enable traditional buildings to be identified and distinguished from non-traditional pre-fabricated buildings. In addition to the historic buildings, there are often other significant archaeological features present. While these may not always be apparent, they are an important part of the archaeological record and help in the understanding of the social and economic development of traditional farmsteads and outfarms.

Worcestershire’s Farmsteads and Landscapes

Traditional farmsteads and their buildings are an integral part of the rural landscape and reflect how it has changed over centuries. Most parts of the country are characterised by a mix of settlement patterns, but a clear distinction can be drawn between those areas, mostly in central England, dominated by large nucleated villages with few isolated farmsteads and those areas that have fewer and smaller villages and higher densities of isolated farmsteads and hamlets.

Worcestershire is predominantly a county of dispersed settlement, often with high densities of farmsteads and historic houses, linked to an intricate network of winding lanes, in areas of woodland, common and heath. Village-based settlement, with low densities of isolated farmsteads that mostly date from after the enclosure of open fields, is concentrated in the south east of the county.

Traditional farmsteads form part of distinct agricultural regions which developed across England from the medieval period, mixing or specialising, to differing degrees, in the production of corn, livestock or dairy products. In some areas farmers and smallholders combined farming and industry, often utilising common grazing on moorland and heath. These regions were influenced by patterns of landownership, communications, urban development and industry, as well as the nature and intensity of earlier land use.

Agricultural productivity has long been sustained by new techniques in crop and animal husbandry, and the restructuring and enlargement of farm holdings. These developments, and local variations in the prosperity of farming, are often expressed in successive waves of rebuilding of houses, barns and other structures extending into the medieval period. The period 1750-1880, and especially the capital-intensive ‘High Farming’ years of the 1840’s-70’s, saw a particularly sharp increase in productivity, in which the rebuilding of farmsteads played a key role. This was followed by a long but regionally varied depression which lasted until the Second World War. From the 1950s family farms have further shrunk in number, as farm sizes and the intensity of production has increased. Many traditional farmsteads and their buildings have become redundant as new non-agricultural modes of rural living have become increasingly popular, often combined with home-working.

Worcestershire’s farmsteads developed within distinct agricultural areas which mixed or specialised, to differing degrees, in the production of corn, livestock or dairy products. A distinguishing feature of the county is strong variations within small areas, giving rise to a rich mix of farmstead and building types. The evidence for 19th century and sometimes 18th century rationalisation of farmsteads and landscapes, including the enlargement of fields with straight boundaries, reflects the fact that Worcestershire was at the forefront of advances in crop development, since the early 1700s.

Some key developments in Worcestershire include;

• Worcestershire’s medieval (1066-1550) landscape was for a time dominated and then influenced by Royal Forest characterised by a diverse array of landscapes.
• Open field cultivation was a dominant characteristic of part of the medieval landscape and is particularly notable in those areas of nucleated settlement dominated by villages, in the central east and south east of the county. During the 15th century there was a large-scale decline in arable cultivation, and acceleration in the abandonment and shrinkage of settlements (especially in the open-field and primarily arable economies) and the amalgamation and growth of holdings.
•  The clearance of woodland and waste for settlement and cultivation (assarting), from as early as the 12th – 14th centuries, is a significant characteristic across much of the north and west of the county.
• The power of major Minsters has had a significant impact on the settlement pattern and historic landscape of the county. By the late 13th century five of the seven Hundreds were held by ecclesiastical landlords. After the Dissolution of the Monasteries which concluded in the 1540s there was a breaking up of ecclesiastical land. Much was sold to lay landlords, including families such as the Lechmeres, Berkleys, Coventrys and, after the Civil War, the Foleys.
• From the 15th and 16th centuries, the majority of open landscapes in Worcestershire were gradually enclosed, a reflection of farmers seeking to rationalise their holdings and land use as well as landowners building up their estates and wealth. This is reflected in the high levels of surviving 18th century and earlier buildings in a national context, from farmsteads to houses and cottages.
• During the 18th and 19th century large tracts of the landscape, especially less productive open land, was re-organised and enclosed. These included Longdon Marsh to the south west, large tracts of heathland in the north and east and upland areas in the north and west.
• A boom in wheat production during the Napoleonic Wars (1803 to 1815) coincided with the erection of new buildings, predominately threshing barns. This is particularly apparent throughout the Sandstone Estates which lie in the north of the county focused around Kidderminster. The growing of more fodder crops and clover allowed for dairying to expand from the 18th century in response to demand from the rising industrial populations of the Black Country.
• The evidence for 19th century and sometimes 18th century rationalisation of farmsteads and landscapes reflects the fact that Worcestershire was at the forefront of advances in crop development (e.g. the growing of clovers) since the early 1700s.
• The 1937 Land Utilisation Survey ranked Worcestershire the second (after Kent) most important fruit growing county in England and Wales. Local specialisation was evident; cherries, damsons and pears (for perry), for example, were of greatest importance west of the Severn whereas plums, although widely distributed, were considered outstanding in the Avon Valley, Upper Teme Valley, Worcester area and in the market gardening region around Evesham. The cider apple was more widely distributed than any other fruit. Fruit production remains a characteristic economic activity on farms and smallholdings in those areas where orchards have been a traditional form of land use; although it should be stressed that the scale of production is considerably smaller today when compared with the late 19th century. This trend has recently been partly reversed with large areas growing apples commercially for Herefordshire cider producers.
• The hop industry developed on an increasingly intensive scale from the late 17th century. Hops were typically planted in the valleys of the Rivers Teme and Severn and intermixed with arable. In the late 18th century, Worcestershire had nearly 6,000 acres under crop. This had fallen by 1874 to only around 2,500 acres. The Land Utilisation Survey of 1937 shows that Worcestershire had 1,818 acres of hops, an increase from around seven to ten percent of the UK total.
• Smallholdings, often organised in loose clusters or scattered along sinuous lanes, are predominately associated with areas of unenclosed common or heath (e.g. Castlemorton) or areas profiting from industrialisation and transport developments during the 19th century (e.g. the Wyre Forest and North East of the county).
• Dodford is one of only five Chartist settlements in the country. It was built in the mid-1840s as part of the Chartist ideal to enfranchise the poor population of the country. Each plot of two, three or four acres contained a house and pigsty with sometimes a stable and enough land to grow crops.
• Worcestershire County Council is recognised as having been at the forefront of smallholding development, when in 1892 it was the first Local Authority to purchase a farm for the purpose of smallholdings.

Farmstead Plan

The layout or plan of a farmstead is key to understanding and describing its character. Farmsteads are made up of buildings and spaces that served several key functions – to house the farming family and any workers, store and process the harvested corn crop, fruit and hops, shelter farm vehicles and implements, shelter farm animals, and keep their manure for returning to the fields around them.

Buildings developed around open and enclosed working spaces within and around the farmstead which were used to stack crops, move and contain animals, particularly cattle, and to store vehicles. Gardens usually developed as private areas with a distinct and separate character, screened from the working areas of the farm by hedges or walls.

The key plan types are:

• Courtyard Plans, where the working buildings are arranged around a yard. They fall into two broad categories – loose courtyard plans where the buildings are detached, and loosely arranged and regular courtyard plans where the buildings are all or mostly interlinked and formally arranged. 87% of traditional farmsteads recorded in Worcestershire have a courtyard plan. This is slightly higher than across the West Midlands (81%).
• Dispersed Plans (4.5% of the total for Worcestershire and 7% for the West Midlands) have no focal yard area and working buildings which are dispersed within the boundary of the steading. These are concentrated in pastoral landscapes including areas close to common land for holding stock.
• The smallest-scale farmsteads, where the house and working buildings are often attached, are in Worcestershire, most closely associated with upland and common-edge farmsteads. They comprise 8.5% of farmsteads in Worcestershire and 12% of farmsteads in the West Midlands.
• Outfarms and field barns which were built to serve fields and sometimes orchards at a distance from the main farmstead.
• Smallholdings which survive in distinct zones around areas of unenclosed common and heath and in areas profiting from industrialisation and transport developments during the 19th century (e.g. the Wyre Forest).

Building Materials

Timber was historically an important building material in Worcestershire. Of the nearly 6500 listed buildings in the county a third of them are constructed of timber. In the medieval and earlier periods, Worcestershire and the surrounding counties had large tracts of oak and elm woodland. Because of this readily available resource most of the buildings were of timber-frame construction set directly on the earth or with a simple rubblestone foundation. It is likely that the surviving timber framed buildings are only a small fraction of those that were actually built. Hand-sawn hardwood boarding is now rarely found, as machine-sawn softwood was increasingly used from the late 18th century.

The largest buildings in the county are built of stone. Around Pershore and Evesham the local stone is blue lias which was used for many of the buildings in the south east area of Worcestershire, even if only as a foundation stone. Also in the south of the county is a predominance of buildings constructed of Cotswold Oolitic limestone. Often this stone was used for the architectural details of lias walled structures. Across the north of Worcestershire the naturally occurring stone is sandstone. This stone is used in many buildings from the medieval period onward but seems to have been difficult to use as large blocks. Therefore it is mainly used as a foundation stone for timber-frame and brick buildings.

Brick became a more common building material from the 16th century although it was really the 17th century use in higher status buildings, that brought it to the forefront of building design. Worcestershire has a large number of buildings constructed of red brick, which is a soft orange-red colour. These bricks were made from the local clays. Brick took over from timber as the predominant building material in the 18th century, due to the natural clays which are ideal for brick making. Earlier brick buildings do occur in the county and where they do tend be of higher status. Brick makers do not appear in the trade directories for Worcestershire before 1835 when there are just four brick makers listed, all in Worcester. It is likely that earlier than this the clay was excavated and the bricks made close to each building site.

Thatch was common in large parts of the county but is now very rare. Farmers used a wide range of locally available materials – heather, bracken, reeds, rushes, grass, turf, and straw from oats, barley, wheat and rye. This is longstraw thatch, with its distinctive shaggy appearance. Longstraw is a term used to describe a thatching method where the ears and butts of the straw are mixed. The stems of the straw are bruised and crushed and the result is a generally looser coat than combed wheat reed or water reed.

Worcestershire Farmsteads Project

The Worcestershire Farmsteads Project is a recording and research project building on the farmstead work already completed in the County by recording farms in much finer detail. Farms are recorded building by building using photographs, site plans and documentary research to understand how each farm has developed over time. The record for each farm is produced in a single report which collectively, both locally and nationally, provide evidence that will answer research question like those stated below. Further information about the project can be obtained from the project leader, Alan Wadsworth at worcs.farmsteads@gmail.com.