Listed Building record MDR14218 - The Chop House and animal shelter, Calke Abbey

A grade II listed chop house with loft over, and cart shed. It is built of red brick with plain tile roofs. It has one brick gable stack, and dentil eaves cornice. It comprises an L-range of buildings. To the west is a two-storey building, the chop house. The south elevation has an external flight of steps with segment headed doorway below. There is a lean-to to the left with a further segment headed doorway. To the right is a blind segment headed opening, a segment headed window with plank shutter, and a segment headed doorway with plank door, set in a lean-to bay. The upper floor has a doorway with flat arch and plank door, and two shallowly segment headed openings. The cart shed to the right is of six bays on circular brick columns with stone capitals. A four bay range returns to the south. (1) The Chop House was a specialist food preparation building or mill. It specialized in producing palatable feed from root crops and cake meal. With the advent of so-called High Farming from 1850 onwards, there was an increasing need for cattle feed; namely turnips, swedes, beans and oil cake. The roots had to be stored and then cut or chopped, sliced and pulped and the cake broken down. By the Victorian period, the root house was considered essential in every well-designed model farm. It was usually situated close to where the feed was needed, adjacent to the cattle sheds. The Chop House is now used by the National Trust as a reception area and staff office [2013]. It is a rare example, and has at least regional, if not national, significance. The Hovels are a contiguous range of open-sided animal shelters, part of which faces south and part of which faces west. The north range has seven bays and the east range has four bays. The open frontages carry the gabled roofs on circular brick piers topped with shaped stone caps on which the ridge plates and truss ends rest. The roof trusses are A-frame with collars and there is no evidence that there was an upper loft. Both sections have brick-built open feeding troughs running along the back walls and evidence of former racks. Only one complete section of racking now remains [2013]. The hovels are noted as having been used to provide shelter and dry feed for bullocks held within the stone-walled enclosure that the sheds form two sides of. They are currently being used for storing miscellaneous items. The farm buildings at Calke may have been built in the 1830s and 1840s, in a period when there was a lull in the building of planned model farms. The brickwork certainly dates them to before 1850. Their positioning, and the lack of a farmhouse, usually a key component of a model farm, suggests a more organic growth of the farmstead, probably starting at the pre-existing horse enclosure with a barn and animal sheds. It is possible that the hovels date to before 1835. The chop house is likely to have been built after this date, but before 1850. (2)