Listed Building record MDR10603 - Southwood Farm, Ticknall

In its present form, Southwood Farm is an enclosure farm linked to the division of Southwood Common in c. 1775, although it is on the site of a much older farm. Primarily a dairy farm, it consists of a group of brick buildings arranged on four sides around a central yard. The farmhouse is of two storeys with Welsh slate roof was built sometime before 1820, as it is shown on a plan of that date. It incorporates a later addition to the west. The large threshing barn, incorporating electrically driven milling machinery, also probably pre-dates the 1820 plan, as do the single and two storey sheds immediately to the south. On the west side of the yard is a range of single storey stables, to which has been attached a later cart shed at right angles. The threshing barn joins at its north end with a low range of single storey calf sheds, the back wall of which is composed of sandstone, possibly part of an earlier enclosure wall. ((1) The findings of a survey carried out in 2019 suggested that the farm was initially established in the late C18th, when Southwood Common was enclosured. The earliest part of the farmhouse is located at the northeast end and consisted of a small three storeyed farmhouse, dating to the last quarter of the C18th. This consisted of an entrance hall, a single living room and kitchen to the front (south), and single storey structure (possibly originally a skullery) to the rear. Some time in the early C19th (pre 1824) a single storey was added to the southwest, possibly as a dinning room. Subsequently a second floor was added to the extention, and extra space added to the rear. In the C20th the farmhouse was extended further to the southwest. There were two sets of historic outbuildings: To the east of the farmhouse a set of out buildings was set round a courtyard. These consisted of a barn on the northeast side, a cattle stall range on the northwest side, and a dairy range to the souteast. Whatever buildings stood on the southwest side of the couryard are now lost. To the southeast of the farmhouse there was a single range of loose boxes and hovels. (2)