Monument record BUD 006 - Hall Farm, Bruisyard Hall

2011: Monitoring of footing trenches excavated during the conversion of a late 16th-19th century farm building group revealed evidence for original floor and yard surfaces within the complex while trenches for an extension exposed evidence for a phase of probable levelling up of part of the site before the original construction work started (S2).

2009: A historic building survey was carried out for a group of farm buildings at hall Farm, Bruisyard Hall, prior to their conversion for use as a wedding venue. Bruisyard Hall is an imposing grade II*-listed Elizabethan brick mansion on the site of a late medieval nunnery approximately 800 m east of Bruisyard parish church. It was built as the main seat of Michael Hare, son of Sir Nicholas Hare, Henry VIII's Master of Requests, and is shown on a sketch plan of 1748 with two gated outer courtyards that were demolished in the mid-19th century. When Hare died childless in 1611 the house passed by marriage to the Rous family of Henham Hall, subsequently Earls of Stradbroke, and remains in their possession. The historic farm complex lies 120 metres south of the hall and adjoins the eastern side of a 220 metre-long drive from Hall Road.
It consists of a well-preserved mid-19th century brick cattle yard with shelter-sheds and cow sheds in the angle of two earlier barns to the south and west. The southern barn is a five-bay timber-framed threshing barn of the early-19th century with unusual ventilation apertures in its original external weatherboarding. The other is a 16th C timber-framed and weatherboarded stable with a hayloft above, later converted to a barn in the 19th C. Despite numerous alterations, such as the replacement of the original queen post roof, the high quality framing remains fairly in tact. It appears that this barn was used to house cows and as a food preparation area.
These farm buildings are likely to have been part of a more extensive range of agricultural buildings associated with the hall. Changes to this group through time clearly illustrate changes to agriculture in the region as a whole (S1).

Included in the Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History annual round up of individual finds and discoveries for 2011 (S3).