15801

 

II  

Designated  

22/02/1995  

11/01/2019  

Farm Buildings at Garth Farm and Heylin Farm  

 

Powys  

Guilsfield  

 

Garth  

321216  

310971  

 

Located on the E side of the Welshpool to Llanfyllin Road, on a ridge overlooking the Guilsfield Brook valley, and the site of the mansion of Garth.  

Agriculture and Subsistence  

 

Model Farm buildings built in the early C19 for the Mytton family of Garth and shown on the Tithe Map of 1842. There may have been a house on this site from as early as the C15, the Myttons acquired the estate through marriage in the early C18 and built a new brick house in the Georgian style. Richard Mytton inherited in 1809 and in the same year engaged JC Loudon to design a new house in an elaborate Strawberry Hill Gothic style. Loudon was also commissioned to produce designs for equally elaborate stables (also 1809) and dog kennels (1811). The house and stables were demolished in 1947, the kennels survive partly derelict 2017. It is probable that the farm buildings were also constructed as part of the rebuilding of the Garth estate and at least influenced by the ideas of Loudon, a noted agricultural improver. The farm buildings are constructed in plain brick as opposed to the style of Gothic render and crocketed spires of the house and other buildings. This relates to their role as functional, practical and efficient agricultural buildings. The buildings are of a U-plan with an internal cross range forming a closed yard and an open yard. They are mainly single storey with two storey pavilions and managers house at the N end. They provided accommodation for cows with associated cart and implement storage and were modernised in the 1950/60s when the cow accommodation was refitted and openings created and altered. A field opposite the farm buildings on the other side of the A490 is noted on the Tithe Map as ‘Cae Brick’, possibly the source of the bricks used in the construction of the farm and other estate buildings. At some point after 1840 an open sided sawmill structure was added to the SW corner of the farm buildings, it is not shown on the Tithe but does appear on the 1st edition OS map of 1884 and may date to the inheritance of the estate by Mytton’s son Richard Herbert Mytton c 1850. The construction of the sawmill would have been part of the operations of the Garth estate, possibly supplying timber to the nearby Cambrian railways, under construction from the mid 1850s through the 1860s. It is likely to have housed a steam driven pit frame type saw, a type of saw used for converting large timber into beams etc. The yard area to the W side of the farm buildings is shown on the Tithe as ‘Stackyard’, and there is also a sawpit marked on the 1st ed on the other side of the road, suggesting that sawmilling was already an operation on the estate and the sawmill building was part of the development of this.  

English garden wall bond brick with corrugated asbestos and slate roofs with open eaves. Open 'U'-plan with central cross range forming one closed yard and one open at the NE end, perhaps originally designed as 2 closed yards. Pavilion blocks of 2 storeys at the corners with hipped roofs, the Bailiff's house being at the NE corner, now Garth farmhouse. Large C20 windows. Main SW elevation has central driftway with 3-centred cart arch of 2 half-brick rings, rebated for doors. Four tiers of vented brickwork in lozenge patterns, and pitching openings on SW and within driftway. Wings consist of a long range of cow houses with four-centred arches to the yard. Low pitched roof trusses with struts from the haunched king posts to a single tier of purlins. The upper, closed yard, has a stone wall with rounded corners containing the central fold yard, the cross range of buildings, perhaps originally designed as animal shelter for the foldyard, is largely rebuilt. Partly retains original doors and windows. Attached at SW corner open sided 3-bay sawmill building, extended by a single bay to NW. Gabled roof of torched graduated slates on wide king post trusses with queen posts. Valley gutter against brick farm building. Elevation to SW of 4 stone piers, later infill to SE elevation.  

Largely altered in post war conversion and fire damaged to part of SW range. Retains plan form of original layout. Evidence of former saw pits at E end of sawmill building.  

Of special architectural and historic interest as coming under the influence of J.C.Loudon, who was a most important influence in the design of farm buildings in the early C19. Group value with the nearby Walled Garden.