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Perhaps the most outstanding of Campbells farm buildings is the
magnificent cast-on-site mass-walled concrete barn in Buscot village,
still used today for grain and machinery storage. It pre-dates other known
concrete farm buildings by about thirty years, having been built around
1870. Measuring 60ft x 162ft x 12ft 6in. to the eaves, its concrete walls
are 1ft 4in. thick at the base. The roof is in red double roman tiles
and is lined on the inside with tongue-and-groove boarding. The gable
ends are red Bridgwater bricks.
Adjacent to the concrete barn is part of the cattle sheds, also in red
brick and roman tile, as were the majority of Campbells buildings.
At Kilmester Farm there are a number of smaller concrete-walled, roman-tiled
buildings that can also be attributed to Campbell.
The buildings from this period are in the style of the Bridgwater area
of Somerset, suggesting that a builder or architect from that area was
used. This is further strengthened by the Berks and Oxon directory of
1863 giving Simmonds and Coulhurst as the proprietors of The
Estate Brick and Tile Works at Eaton Hastings. The Coulhurst family
are well-known Somerset builders and builders merchants.
One of the storerooms at Oldfield Farm has revealed some items of telegraph
equipment, which, when dated, may prove a link with the estate telegraph
of the 1870s.
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