Standing Building Recording at Glasshouse Farm, Whittington, Derbyshire.

In December 1997 ARCUS was commissioned by Marcpen Ltd, to undertake standing building recording at Glasshouse Farm, Whittington, Chesterfield. Planning permission had been obtained for the demolition of the farm and redevelopment of the site, with the proviso that standing building recording and archaeological monitoring be undertaken. Glasshouse Farm had been part of the estates of the Dixon family, who, in the eighteenth century, operated a glass furnace in the vicinity. The furnace site itself was listed under the Monuments Protection Programme of English Heritage, and documentary sources suggested that part of the farm had at one time been used for the cutting and working of glass from the furnace. The standing building survey was undertaken prior to and during the demolition, in order to determine the history of the farm buildings, and to see what, if any, evidence survived for glassmaking at the farm. The survey found that the farm had been built in a number of phases, starting with the construction of a large barn in the late-eighteenth or early-nineteenth century. The farmhouse and a single-storey colonnaded range were added in the early-nineteenth century, the whole forming a compact model farm.In the mid- to late-nineteenth century both the farmhouse and the main barns were extended, and further modifications were made at the end of the nineteenth century and into the twentieth century. No evidence was found for industrial use of any of the buildings that survived on site, although the possibility remains that the farm occupied the site of a former manufactory.