Winlaton, Norman's Riding Farm

HER Number:
5087

District:
Gateshead

Site Name:
Winlaton, Norman's Riding Farm

Place:
Winlaton

Map Sheet:
NZ16SE

Class:
Agriculture and Subsistence

Site Type: Broad:
Farm

Site Type: Specific:
Farmstead

General Period:
Early Modern

Specific Period:
C19

Form of Evidence:
Extant Building

Description:
Farmstead including a two storey barn, which has a granary in the upper floor. The farm buildings appear to derive from the mid 19th century. Either a number of buildings have been lost or the farm has always been a small-scale dairy based enterprise. Prior to the present owners, the farm was owned by the National Coal Board, from which time a small yellow brick boiler house survives. None of the surviving earlier buildings have any significant architectural merit or any of the simple but pleasant detailing found on many agricultural buildings of the period. Although both quoins and lintels on the barn and farmhouse are of the same style - pecked stone with a margin. The stonework of the barn is otherwise of random stone and the roof is slate. The rear elevation has one opening at the upper level and two arched entrances into the lower floor. Here the use of a huge single stone to form the central column of the double arch gives an earlier look to this typical 19th century feature. The use of an odd undressed quoin stone also suggests that stone was used from an earlier building. Documentary evidence confirms that the farm was based upon the farmhouse and barn/granary. The single storey range which projects from the farmhouse is a later addition. The farm is not mentioned in Parson and White's directory of 1828 but is in Whellan's Gazeteer of 1856. The farm, at this time, is unusually in the ownership of a woman, further suggesting that this was a small family farm. The map evidence is unclear - Hobson's map of Durham of 1840 does not name the site but buildings appear to be marked on or near it. This type of small farm was once common but was overtaken by the developed farms of the mid 19th century. Brunskill notes in his "Traditional Farm Buildings of Britain" that a "family farm need consist of only two buildings" - a farmhouse and a barn with yard and midden in between. The large central column stone may be explained by a structural problem with this type of building - a structural problem does appear near the western end of the north-eastern elevation of the barn.

Easting:
1668

Northing:
6145

Grid Reference:
NZ16686145

Lats/Lons:

Sources:
<< HER 5087 >> I. Ayris, 1990, Norman's Riding Farm,Site visit notes