8715

 

II*  

Designated  

02/07/1993  

20/03/1998  

Slurry Tank  

 

Powys  

Forden with Leighton and Trelystan  

Forden  

Moel y Mab  

324962  

305451  

 

Situated at the top of Moel y Mab approximately 0.9km SE of Leighton church and reached by private road W of a minor road between Leighton and Trelystan.  

Agriculture and Subsistence  

 

Erected early 1850s as a reservoir for manure slurry which was then pumped through a system of copper pipes to fields on the Leighton Estate. The ranges around the tank contained cattle sheds. Water is said to have been pumped to the tank from the River Severn in order to make the slurry. The Slurry Tank was the largest and latest of a group of 3 built on the east side of Leighton and was an integral part of the Leighton Estate, acquired by the Liverpool banker John Naylor in 1846-47. Here he embarked on an ambitious programme of building, principally Leighton Hall, church and Farm, which was largely completed by the mid 1850s. Naylor introduced new rational farming methods at Leighton, notably pioneering the recycling of manure as fertiliser. Naylor continued to extend and improve the Estate until his death in 1889. His grandson, Captain J.M. Naylor, sold the Estate in 1931.  

A huge brick-walled structure, rectangular in plan, approximately 49x29m, partially set into a bank on the W side, and with a large tank in the centre. Of brick with a slate roof to the S range. The principal surviving range is to the E, which is 2-storeyed and has a 13-bay elevation with bullseye windows above round-headed doorways (2 of which have boarded sliding doors, and 3 are partially blocked to form lunettes). In the outer bays are smaller lunettes. Above the bullseye windows is a white brick dentil cornice and a parapet formed by taking a third storey down to window sill level. The S range has a wide doorway to L in a rusticated surround, and with a horizontally sliding boarded door. To R is a round-headed doorway reached by a raised path with brick retaining wall. The inner face of the S range has 6 openings under segmental heads, of which 4 retain some of their original louvres and beneath 2 of which are chutes through which muck was swept into the tank. Below is a 6-bay, barrel vaulted undercroft open to the tank. The N range has a similar undercroft, but is otherwise mostly demolished. It has a short brick tunnel below a ramp to the NW. The W range is also mostly demolished.  

Not inspected (November 1996). It is said that in the E range the ground floor doorways lead into rectangular cells. In the first floor is a central full-length corridor with a brick vault. In the S wing the interior is divided into pens.  

The Leighton Estate is an exceptional example of high-Victorian estate development. It is remarkable for the scale and ambition of its conception and planning, the consistency of its design, the extent of its survival, and is the most complete example of its type in Wales. Listed Grade II*, the Slurry Tank is an important element of this whole ensemble at Leighton. It is a highly specialised building type which represented a bold attempt to revolutionise agricultural techniques in the context of a model farm of national significance.