Building record 15963 - Cornhill Farm, Lyme Handley

<1> University of Salford (Centre for Applied Archaeology), 2020, Historic Building Investigation: Cornhill Farm, Lyme Handley, Whaley Bridge, Cheshire, R4777 (Client Report). SCH9612.

Cornhill Farm represents part of a landscape that was formed as part of the Lyme Park Estate, by the Legh family from the sixteenth century. Local knowledge, possibly from the previous owner of the property, suggested that the building dates from the 1600s, but the survival of substantially complete farm buildings prior to 1660 is rare. The earliest records revealed for the farms of the Lyme Estate date to 1784, and the occupier of Cornhill Farm is included within that document, demonstrating that the farm/small holding was present by that date. However, its plan form is consistent with architectural styles that spanned from the late-medieval period until the eighteenth century, suggesting that a seventeenth century date of initial construction is not implausible.

The existing farm building comprises a linear, multi-phase structure of two storeys. It is of local sandstone construction, roughly coursed below a sandstone flagged roof. The building is aligned on an approximate south-west/north-east axis, with the main façade facing to the south-east. The long narrow building comprises, from the western end, a former store, a three-bay farmhouse incorporating the original cottage, an attached barn and, at the eastern end, a ruinous two-storey shippon. Just to the south there is a separate, ruined former pig sty. The phasing given for the complex is the original cottage as the earliest phase, followed by the extension to the cottage to the east, followed by the addition of the barn to the east and the store to the west side of the cottage. These appear to be present on the Tithe Map of 1850. The pig sty is not present, but appears on the OS First Edition map. The addition of the shippon to the east side of the barn appears to occur in the period between between the OS first edition and second edition maps.

The original cottage appears to have comprised two bays, towards the western end of the structure, measuring 6.6m in length, and demarked by predominately pinkish coloured, large dressed and stepped quoins. A dormer window within this section of the original façade has more rusticated quoins, with tooled margins, demonstrating it to be of a later date. The large horizontal ground-floor window below the dormer also represents a remodelling of similar date, either inserting a new window, or more probably, enlarging an existing aperture. Within the original part of the façade, and located immediately inside the quoins forming the western return of the original build, an area of smaller, greyer-coloured, facing stones, possibly represents the position of an original 1.05m wide doorway. Whilst it is tempting to suggest a typical two room plan of a small cottage, with a larger living room, and smaller scullery, there was no evidence for posts or staves within the soffit of the large-scantling ceiling beam, possibly suggesting instead a single-room cottage. It is unclear whether the original entrance was in the gable wall or southern wall (Gable-entry houses are a common feature of vernacular buildings within Lancashire and Cheshire), but either position would suggest an inglenook internal arrangement, although there is no longer any evidence for such a fireplace. Given the small size of the property, relative to the large scantling of the timbers, a pre-eighteenth century date is possible.

The bay to the east of the original structure forms part of the extant farmhouse, but clearly represents an extension. It has a similar gabled dormer to that in the earlier element of the façade to the west, almost certainly of contemporary construction. To the east of the present extended farmhouse is an attached barn, the façade of which was constructed using less weathered russet red and buff sandstone. The interior of the barn has been partially renovated but retains much of its original layout. The western part comprises a threshing barn, latterly open to the rafters, whilst the eastern side has a hayloft above a cowhouse, primarily accessed from a separate entrance in the southern façade.