Swindon in the Past Lane

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 19 th  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.  ...

To the inexperienced eye the barn at Great Coxwell might appear big, but apparently as monastic barns go, it’s a bit on the small side.  Measuring 152 feet and 7 bays long, records reveal examples of others double that length. Situated along the Hollow Road, the medieval barn formed part of the monastic farm or grange belonging to Beaulieu Abbey.  Built in around 1300 the Cotswold rubble-stone walled barn with purlin roof is today admired for its architectural features.  But those medieval builders knew a thing or two about efficiency and everything was designed to make life just a little easier for both builders and the over worked agricultural labourer. The canny 14 th century architects sited the barn on a natural stony outcrop thereby avoiding the need to dig foundations and prolong building work.  The barn itself was constructed by a team of masons and carpenters.  The square holes in the walls, ‘putlog holes,’ supported the builders s...