See MNT28114 for attached farmhouse.
Courtyard of 19th century farm buildings including barn, stables and cart-sheds.
Annotated as 'Normanton Field' on 1883 OS map (1).
Built at some point between 1824 and 1885 (OS 1885). In 1885, the buildings were recorded in a courtyard plan and the interior area appears uncovered. Little Corkhill Farm is a small, traditional farmstead with a full, regular courtyard plan. The four building ranges that complete the courtyard comprise of one two storey building range and 3 single storey building ranges. Whilst the tradition-al layout of the buildings has remained largely unchanged, internal features have been largely lost and historic fabric has suffered degradation from roof collapse…By 1899, Little Corkhill is shown with its courtyard covered…The covering of the yard would indicate that livestock are already being kept by this time…In 1915, there is a windpump marked on the OS Map which is indicative of the local weather conditions. Strong winds could have influenced the historic courtyard design as this condensed layout would offer protection from the elements. The historic regular courtyard plan of the farmstead does not alter from 1915 to 1955, though…there are believed to be material altera-tions to the building ranges….The earliest mention of Little Corkhill directly by name is from the Nottinghamshire Directory, in which a Herbert W. Steel is listed as the farmer. In the 1939 census, Herbert W. Steel lists his address as Corkhill Farm and his occupation as ‘Dairy Farmer Heavy Worker’ and his wife, Mabel is also a ‘Farm worker light duties’. This aligns with the theory, to be discussed in Section 4.3, that Building Range 2 was a cow shed however this would have been a very small dairy farm…At the end of the nineteenth century, agricultural depression led by cheap, imported grains saw a number of farms turn from arable to dairy herds, as the price of milk was well‐maintained and the advent of the railway allowed for milk to be transported and sold further afield (Hunt & Pam, 2000). At the turn of the century, most farmsteads were still involved in some form with both livestock and crop husbandry, however this mixed character was almost complete-ly lost in the 1950s. The relatively small size and enclosed nature of the courtyard buildings at Little Corkhill would likely have been difficult to adapt to the largescale intensive farming practices which followed the agricultural boom of the 1950s and the enhancements in industrial dairy farming and as such, they were most recently used for keeping chickens before falling into disuse and disrepair. (2)

<1> OS, 1883, 1:2500, County Series 1883 (Map). SNT2539.

<2> Newark & Sherwood DC, 2021, Little Corkhill Farm, Kirkington (Report on Building Recording Level 2) (Unpublished document). SNT5567.