The Granary - Weston Park - Weston-under-Lizard, Staffordshire - UK Historical Markers on Waymarking.com

"The Granary dominates the north-west corner of the group of buildings that make up the heart of Weston Park. It began its life in the late eighteenth century, with its core built as a great barn for the home farm. The powerful form and scale of the building indicated the building's important role as a store for the harvest at the heart of the estate.

The construction of the great barn in 1767 was documented in building accounts within the Bradford family papers. It was built for Sir Henry Bridgeman, 5th Bt., and later 1st Baron Bradford, who had inherited the Weston estate in 1764.

The 1767 build appears to have been the main block, running east to west and dominating the yard of smaller ancillary buildings. These smaller buildings included the surviving piggery, to the south, and a further group of buildings to the north comprising cattle sheds which were demolished in the twentieth century. As a great barn, it was probably designed by the architect James Paine, with two monumental threshing floors, with broken pediment-surmounted arched openings and with the adjoining external walls originally punctuated by regular patterns of ventilating apertures. Framing the whole of the north elevation is a pair of tall pyramid-roofed towers surmounted by vanes. The eastern most tower contains a pigeon house, which probably replaced the freestanding dovecot which is known to have stood to the west of the house. The towers on the building are derived from the designs of the sixteenth century Italian architect Andrea Palladio, which were a source of fascination for English aristocrats.

The focus of the great barn at a farm was outlined by William Pitt writing in his volume The Agriculture of Stafford (1808):
“in a regular farm, after a decent and comfortable house, the next buildings requisite are barns”.

Thomas Coke of Norfolk, the great agriculturalist of the late eighteenth century, was only too well aware of this, with his great barn designed by Samuel Wyatt in 1792 originally visible from the Coke family's mansion at Holkham. Whilst this was not the case at Weston, the architectural monumentality of the building poses a clear rivalry to Holkham's barn and the Weston barn is important for being thirty years its senior.

Economic changes saw the purpose of the structure and its actual form change, in the early years of the nineteenth century, under the ownership of Sir Henry Bridgeman's son, Orlando, 1st Earl of Bradford of the second creation (1762-1825).

Lord Bradford was a keen agricultural improver, with interests in improving the breeds of cattle, sheep and pigs on his home farm. Evidence for this comes not only from the building, but also from books in the Weston library and paintings by Thomas Weaver in the house's collection.

Between 1751 and 1821, the population of England and Wales had doubled and this issue, together with the increase of grain prices would have made the adaptation of the great barn to the predominant purpose of a granary a highly desirable proposition. Soon after the French War was declared in 1793, grain prices had immediately risen from 30 shillings to the artificially high price of over 80 shillings a quarter, and in 1801 and 1811 to over 120 shillings. Weston's great barn appears to have gained its two multi-storied wings to the south of the original barn at this time, whilst the original structure itself was adapted by the infill of many of the ventilation apertures and the cutting of new window openings. Within its carcass, new floors were constructed, some of their elements being independent of the exterior walls.

The granary continued to form the centre of Weston’s home farm until the late twentieth century, when the 6th Earl of Bradford was also using the building to rear pheasants. Grain was still stored in parts of the building, though.

When the Weston Park Foundation took ownership of Weston Park in 1986, the building was used, in part, for storage, although large parts of the structure were disused. In 2006, though, the foundation decided to restore the building in phases. The first phase involved the restoration and conversion of the main body of the building - the original great barn - as a shop and gallery. This work was generously supported by grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund and from Advantage West Midlands."

SOURCE - info board

Type of Historic Marker: Plaque Historical Marker Issuing Authority: Weston Park Related Website: [Web Link] Give your Rating: Age/Event Date: Not listed

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