Farmstead record KIR 059 - Farmstead: Malting Farm

Malting Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular U-plan with the farmhouse detached and set away from the yard. The farmstead sits alongside a public road in an isolated location. There has been a significant loss of working buildings with the remaining converted for residential use.

23 Trimley Road lies on the eastern side of the road between Kirton and Trimley, approximately 500 m south-west of the parish church. The site is shown as Malting Farm on the Ordnance Survey of 1902, and included a farmhouse and a group of agricultural buildings in addition to a large malthouse to the south. The malthouse and most of the farm buildings had been demolished prior to inspection, leaving only a brick stable and a timber-framed barn in addition to the unlisted early-19th century red-brick farmhouse. The stable is a good example of its type, which retains an original brick floor, manger, hay rack, tack room and boarded stalls. In its present form the structure dates from the 1860s or 1870s, but its walls incorporate parts of an early-19th century brick building of uncertain purpose shown on the tithe map of 1839. The tithe map also shows the malthouse, but not the barn. The latter is a four-bay structure of typical form but was extensively rebuilt in the late-20th century and has partly collapsed. The chief interest of the remaining buildings lies in the extent to which they illustrate the small scale and agricultural basis of many malting operations in Suffolk before the advent of industrialisation during the 20th century (S1).

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.