Landmark restores Georgian dairy

A model dairy in Kent left derelict for more than 100 years is now welcoming guests after a complicated year-long restoration by the Landmark Trust.

Cobham Dairy was commissioned by the 4th Earl of Darnley in the mid 1790s for his wife, Elizabeth Brownlow, and built by the influential architect James Wyatt in the grounds of Cobham Hall, an Elizabethan manor house.

Model dairies were highly decorative yet functional spaces used by ladies to supervise dairy production, a trend dating back to Queen Mary, who had a model dairy at Hampton Court in the 1690s.

After World War II, Cobham Hall was turned into a girls’ school. The dairy on the edge of the estate stood derelict and it was eventually placed on the national Buildings at Risk register.

In 2016, an appeal was launched by the Landmark Trust to raise £1m to save the Grade Ii*-listed building.

Working with Wyatt’s drawings in the Yale Centre for British Art, the building has now been restored to its original condition. One of the biggest challenges was reinstating delicate ribbed and vaulted plasterwork thought to have been originally completed by the Italian stuccadero Francisco Bernasconi. Master plasterer Philip Gaches and his team spent six months recreating the plasterwork.

“Cobham Dairy stood for many years as a near-ruin, a miniature masterpiece by a brilliant architect and window into the world of the 18th century. We are delighted that we’ve been able to breathe new life into this precious building,” said Dr Anna Keay, Landmark’s director.