Riseley Lodge Farm

Riseley Lodge Farmhouse was listed by the former Ministry of Works in May 1952 as Grade II, of special interest. It is a 17th century building which is timber-framed and coated with colour-washed roughcast with an old clay tiled roof. It is built in a T-shape with later additions and has two storeys. There is a lean-to single storey addition to the north-east gable and of the main block and a one-storey outbuilding added at the right angle to the rear of the cross-wing.

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/H36/18] found it owned by Lord Saint John of Bletsoe and occupied by Duncan Halkett Bower who paid rent of £300 per annum, a rate set in 1921, having been £230 since 1905. The farm comprised 230 acres. The valuer commented: "Gave up Coldhams 1925 was £200 fixed 1921 before that £150. Water from well, long way away, reservoir for buildings. Very heavy land, very bad in wet year, wants draining". Another hand wrote: "60 year tenancy. Rent high".

The "old house" comprised two reception rooms, a breakfast room used as a reception room, a kitchen, a scullery, a dairy, a mangle room, five bedrooms, a bathroom, a store room, a wood barn and a garage. The "very good" homestead contained: two sets of two stall nag stable used as calf pens; a three-bay hovel; a cowhouse for four; a cowhouse for eight; a chaff house; a cowhouse for two; a four-bay hovel; a six horse stable and standing; a cowhouse for three; another three-bay hovel; a barn; a cowhouse for five; another four-bay hovel; a loose box; a two-bay store shed; an eleven-bay hovel; a bull shelter; a three-bay implement shed; a two-bay hovel and a five-bay cart shed, mixing house, five piggeries and a granary.