Building record GLG 042 - Outbuilding at Stone House, Great Gemham

The small pantiled outbuilding which forms the subject of this report was built in circa 1890 as a triple pig sty immediately west of the coach house. Rising to just 1.8 m (6 ft) at its eaves the post-and-rail structure clad in tarred vertical boarding was shown on the Ordnance Survey of 1903 with three pens adjoining its southern elevation, of which one still survives. The interior was undivided and used as a wood store at the time of inspection but there is evidence of two missing partitions and three small doorways opening onto the pens. The present double doors in the eastern gable are later insertions.
The wall fabric is typical of the late-19th and early-20th centuries, and small sties of this kind were once common on both farms and private houses; their distinctive pens frequently shown on historic maps. Timber-framed examples are now rare survivors in anything resembling their original form as they were cheaply built and not intended to endure the test of time. Their diminutive size made pig sties uniquely vulnerable to demolition as they were not suitable for conversion when private pig keeping ceased to be fashionable after WWII and commercial production moved to a far greater scale. This example is accordingly of considerable historic interest (S1).