MEM23061 - Cornham Farm, Exmoor (Building)

The farmstead is shown on the 1st and 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey map as a group of buildings surrounding the north, east and west sides of a yard, which mostly still appear to be extant. A further building was situated to the southeast at c. SS 7491 3926 but this now appears to have been replaced by a larger, modern building. [1-3] The farmstead was visited in December 1996. One building was thought to be of 19th Century date and built of rubble stone. [4] This is presumably a farmstead built for the Knight family in the 19th Century. [5] A rapid historic buildings assessment of the great barns at Cornham and Honeymead was undertaken in 2021-2023. In 1819 John Knight embarked on the reclamation, enclosure, and improvement of the Royal Forest of Exmoor. He established new farmsteads of Cornham and Honeymead and furnished them with farmhouses and farm buildings. A feature of both farms is a Great Barn, long twostorey buildings flanked (or formerly so) by single-storey open-sided aisles. The measured survey of these two barns indicates they are almost identical and were built to a common design. The original purpose of these buildings remains to be determined but the storage and perhaps drying of fodder crops would appear most likely. The open-sided aisles would have been cattle sheds, and the compact, nuclear form of the structure saved money on its construction and reduced the carriage distance between store and animal. However, those economies were at the expense of efficiency, as due to the aisles all goods had to be carried into the building via the gable doors, and in both instances there was a separate waterpowered threshing barn. Both structures were subsequently much altered to suit changing need, and this presumably indicates that either these buildings did not function as intended, or else the original function was sufficiently different to later use (under Frederic Knight) to require those changes. Cornham barn still forms part of the working farm, albeit much reduced and with the loss of both aisles. Honeymead barn is in better overall condition but is either redundant or turned to alternative uses. Taken together, the Great Barns illustrate the driving ambition and aspiration of John Knight’s ‘Exmoor Experiment’ and are the largest and most enigmatic buildings to survive from this phase of reclamation within the former Royal Forest. [6] A project to reassess 19th century moorland reclamation through palaeological and archive research was undertaken 2020-2022 producing a number of reports. [7] The heritage asset was assessed for inclusion on the Exmoor Local Heritage List in February 2024. It was noted that it is highly rare as most of the buildings are intact. It is of high distinctive design being of the 19th century Knight Estate and distinctive treshing barn. It's social communal value is moderate being a well known Knight farmstead. It was decided to add the asset to the Local Heritage List. [8]