Building record 1163200000 - THE FARMHOUSE, PASTURE FARM

Grade II. House. C17, altered. Thin brick in Flemish bond, partly chequered, with first floor band course and rendered plinth. C20 tile roof, central chimney with grouped shafts of thin brick. Cross plan with gabled projection to centre front, and wing to centre rear. One storey and attic, 3 bays. Outer bays have small gables to front and C20 3-light wooden casements. Central projection has similar 2-light casement to upper storey, C20 door with flat wooden hood, and C20 lean-to porch to right. Lean-to to rear. RCHM I p. 59 Mon. 10 (B1).
Although it has now been divided in to two separate cottages, the basic fabric of the farmhouse survives in its entirety and it is possible to to compare the expenditure with the building in some detail. It is a comparatively modest house of lobby-entry form with a central rear range laid out in a T-shaped plan. There is a single room on both floors on either side of the axial chimney stack on the entrance range, which faces south-east. Only three of the four rooms are heated and the upper storey is partly contained within the roof space lit by large gabled dormer windows. The original staircase has been replaced, but it was positioned to the rear of the stack. The service range to the rear contained a single room on each floor with a separate chimney stack in the centre of the gable end. A vertically planked door with original hinges gave on to a lean-to on the north side which has subsequently been removed. Access to a spacious cellar beneath the north half of the entrance range is by a similar door in the east wall of the ground floor service room. The building is constructed of thin bricks laid in a Flemish bond with the remnants of a decorative pattern created by the use of darker headers. Straight joints suggest that the central projection on the entrance front which gives an approximate cruciform plan to the house is a later addition even though it is built of similar bricks in the same bond. The frame work of the roof is of simple pegged construction with a high collar at ceiling level.
As part of the final 1632 settlement relating to the disafforestation of Bernwood the decision was made to grant 231 acres of land in the south west corner of Boarstall parish, on the Oakley border but more than 2 miles from the settlement at Brill, to the 'poorer sort' of Brill and Oakley. This was the area which was later to become Pasture Farm. Over the next forty years it was administered by trustees in ways which were less than efficient, forcing the 'poorer sort' to pursue their claims of mismanagement in the Exchequer Courts on several occasions, resulting in the setting up of an Exchequer Special Commission, which met in 1685. It empowered the trustees to let the land at full rent for periods of up to 21 years and to use the rent money for payments to the poorer inhabitants. Under the terms of this Commission, the trustees then let the Pasture to two men on a 10 year lease, and, much to the anger of some villagers in Brill, encouraged them to build a house on the land to be paid for from the rents, and to fence the holding. The effect of the building costs was to halve the amount of money potentially available to pay out to the poor. The house cost over £200 to build and the implication is that this was a high price to pay for a relativley modest farm dwelling with limited outhousing. However, the broad conclusion, as the accounts for the building of the house were provided as evidence during Exchequer action, must be that there was nothing inherently dubious about the account submitted for building Pasture Farm and it represented a fair summary of the actual building costs (B2).