Shaw Farm- Prince Albert's model farm on the Royal estate at Windsor

D ILN 85/6/217/1

1862

The Illustrated London News, Prince Consort of Victoria Albert, Queen of Great Britain, 1819-1861

black & white illustration from Illustrated London News, 1862

1 illustration: b&w

type: CUT

English

file

model farms, royal farms, Prince Albert, Victorian farmers, Windsor, Graphic Materials

<DIV STYLE="text-align:Justify;font-family:Georgia;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:16;color:#000000;"><P><SPAN><SPAN>2. &lt;B&gt;Shaw Farm- Prince Albert?s model farm on the Royal estate at Windsor&lt;/B&gt;&lt;P&gt; This picture from The Illustrated London News of 1862 shows the polarity of means afforded different owner-occupier farmers. In utter contrast to the meagre living of petty smallholders who owned and barely managed to live off their land, Prince Albert was a gentleman farmer - a wealthy landowner who could afford to cultivate farms on the Royal estate for pleasure not necessity. Thus we see here Shaw Farm, built in 1853 from designs by G. A. Dean, and one of six farms at Windsor that covered in total 2,400 acres and encompassed both arable and livestock husbandry.&lt;P&gt; D ILN 85/6/217/1</SPAN></SPAN></P></DIV><DIV STYLE="text-align:Justify;font-family:Georgia;font-style:normal;font-weight:normal;font-size:16;color:#000000;"><P><SPAN><SPAN>4. &lt;B&gt;Shaw Farm- Prince Albert?s model farm on the Royal estate at Windsor&lt;/B&gt;&lt;P&gt;This picture from The Illustrated London News of 1862 shows the polarity of means afforded different owner-occupier farmers. In utter contrast to the meagre living of petty smallholders who owned and barely managed to live off their land, Prince Albert was a gentleman farmer - a wealthy landowner who could afford to cultivate farms on the Royal estate for pleasure not necessity. Thus we see here Shaw Farm, built in 1853 from designs by G. A. Dean, and one of six farms at Windsor that covered in total 2,400 acres and encompassed both arable and livestock husbandry.&lt;P&gt; These home or model farms cultivated by gentleman landowners like Prince Albert were hotbeds of experimentation. Because the livelihood of an estate did not depend on their income there was much room for innovation. New methods and equipment were frequently tested. Here at Shaw Farm, for instance, we can see the factory-like farmstead layout that progressive Victorians so avidly heralded as achieving ?the best possible combination of economy with efficiency? &lt;I&gt;(R. Brigden,?Victorian Farms?, p.35)&lt;/I&gt;. The stackyard at the top adjoins the steam-powered processing house where livestock feed would be produced from fodder crops. From here it could then be distributed directly to the rows of animal sheds behind and so completing what was, in effect, a production line system. This impressive, purpose-built farmstead was a far cry from smaller farms that sometimes comprised little more than an accidental arrangement of shoddy buildings.&lt;P&gt;D ILN 85/6/217/1</SPAN></SPAN></P></DIV>

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