Farmstead record WFG 042 - Farmstead: White Hall Farm

White Hall Farm lies at the southern edge of Great Waldingfield on the eastern side of Valley Road, which forms the boundary with Chilton parish and is marked as a Roman road on Ordnance Surveys. The farmhouse is not listed but is ostensibly a timber-framed and rendered structure of the 18th century or earlier with a 19th century gault brick facade. It appears to have formed the southern wing of a larger U-shaped house shown on the tithe map of 1838, at which time the present farm was a combination of two smaller holdings known as Chilton End and Copt Hall Farms. The hospital complex of the nearby WWII USAF base lay immediately north of the site but was demolished in 1971 to make way for a steel-framed grain store, leaving only a series of concrete floors in situ. The present agricultural buildings form a single-phase ‘model farm’ of circa 1870 built to the rear of the remodelled farmhouse on land used as open pasture in 1838. Sale documents of 1929, when the farm was a relatively substantial holding of 298 acres, describe the purpose of each unit but it is no longer possible to identify them with certainty. The red-brick and slate complex extends to an impressive 55 metres in length by 21 metres in width (180 feet by 70 feet) and reflects the standard High Victorian layout with a series of animal yards and shelter-sheds to the south of a ‘barn’. The latter, unusually, is a single storied structure of just 2.4 m in height (8 feet) rather than a traditional threshing barn and would have served as a store for mechanically threshed grain. The farm is known to have possessed at last one normal barn elsewhere. The complex would have been a good example of its type but for the extent of its 20th century alterations, which include the application of cement render to the ‘barn’, the replacement of much original slate with corrugated asbestos, the remodelling of many walls and the removal of all historic fixtures and fittings. While its historic interest has been considerably depleted the general layout of the complex remains largely intact, illustrating the distribution and nature of model farms in the area, and it therefore retains some regional interest while failing to meet the English Heritage criteria for listing (S1).

White Hall Hall, Great Waldingfield. 19th century farmstead and 17th century farmhouse. Regular courtyard multi-yard plan formed by working agricultural buildings. The farmhouse is set away from the yard. The farmstead is extant. Located within a village (S2-7).

Recorded as part of the Farmsteads in the Suffolk Countryside Project. This is a purely desk-based study and no site visits were undertaken. These records are not intended to be a definitive assessment of these buildings. Dating reflects their presence at a point in time on historic maps and there is potential for earlier origins to buildings and farmsteads. This project highlights a potential need for a more in depth field study of farmstead to gather more specific age data.