MEM23050 - Honeymead Farm (Building)

The farm is shown on the 1st and 2nd Edition Ordnance Survey maps in much the same form. The farm buildings are arranged within an enclosure in a line between c. SS 7965 3921 and SS 7978 3916; a stream or leat and then a series of enclosures is depicted to their north. [1,2] The 1946-8 aerial photographs show a few additional buildings have been constructed within some of the enclosures of the site and it is shown to have been further developed on the modern MasterMap and aerial photograph data, although the enclosure boundaries appear to be in much the same position and some of the original buildings still appear to be extant (apparently including the farmhouse). [3-5] The farmstead was visited in December 1996. It is described as a large, loose conglomeration of 20th Century and late 19th Century houses and buildings. It suggests one long barn or stables of rubble might be of interest. [6] The farm was originally built for the Knight family. [7] Orwin states that in 1861, Honeymead farm was split to form Picked Stones farm (MEM25127, 385 acres) and Winstitchen Farm (MEM23059, 407 acres). [8] 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. [9]