Oxford Farm Keysoe

Oxford Farm March 2016

Oxford Farm was named after the farm’s owners – Corpus Christi College, Oxford. The farmhouse was listed by the former Department of Environment in August 1983 as Grade II, of special interest. It is timber-framed with colour-washed roughcast coating , with a brick casing on the ground floor, and an old clay tiled roof. It is built in a T-plan and comprises two storeys. The porch is 20th century and there are lean-to single storey extensions to the north gable end and the rear.

The Rating and Valuation Act 1925 specified that every building and piece of land in the country was to be assessed to determine its rateable value. The valuer visiting the farm [DV1/H22/70] found that it was still owned by Corpus Christi College, Oxford and leased by E G Sharman who paid rent of £50, fixed in 1900. The farm comprised 78 acres. A colleague of the valuer commented: “Long shape farm. House and homestead fair”

The farmhouse contained two reception rooms, a kitchen, a dairy, a pantry and a boot room on the ground floor. Upstairs were two parlours, a bedroom and a servant’s bedroom. Up a second staircase from the ground floor were two more bedrooms. A coal barn, a wood barn and a privy all stood outside. The homestead, mostly wood on brick foundations, with tile, slate and corrugated iron roofing, was in three blocks:

• The main block contained a yard; two calf boxes; a two-bay open hovel; a loose box and a two-bay wagon shed;
• A trap house;
• A three-bay open hovel; a pig sty; a cow place for three and a calf pen; a meal and chaff box; a stable for three; a lose box; a four-bay open hovel.

Corpus Christi put the farm up for sale by auction in 1964. The sale particulars [X994/7] stated: “The Property has been owned by Corpus Christi College, Oxford for many years and is on the market with Vacant Possession due to the death of the Tenant, Mr Hawkins”. The farm comprised 78 acres, 1 rood, 27 poles, “mainly under arable cultivations and there is a basic Potato acreage of 8 acres on the farm”.

The farmhouse contained, on the ground floor: a sitting room measuring 12 feet 6 inches by 11 feet 6 inches; a living room measuring 13 feet by 11 feet 4 inches; a store room; a kitchen with a Rayburn No. 2 stove for heating water, a sink with hot and cold running water and a pantry. Upstairs were two bedrooms measuring 16 feet 6 inches by 11 feet 10 inches and 12 feet 9 inches by 11 feet 7 inches respectively, a landing bedroom, a bathroom with hot and cold running water and a WC and an airing cupboard. A timber and asbestos garage and a lean-to timber and slate coal shed both stood outside.

The farm buildings were broken down into five blocks as follows:

• brick, timber and slate barn with concrete and brick floor; lean-to brick, timber and asbestos store shed with concrete floor and sliding doors; lean-to brick, timber and corrugated iron shed housing a grain pit;
• concrete yard with three-bay brick, timber and corrugated iron open shed; four-bay brick, timber and corrugated iron lean-to open shed adjoining the barn with a brick, timber and slate rage of cow house to tie six cows, dairy and three loose boxes;
• brick, timber and slate pigsty with yard;
• brick, timber, steel and corrugated iron covered yard with concrete floor and brick, timber and tiled range of tool shed, small loose box and two-bay open shed
• pre-cast concrete and asbestos four-bay Dutch barn.