Farmstead record HGM 022 - Farmstead: Valley Farm

Valley Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a dispersed 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 appearing to be in residential use. (S2-5)

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.


The barn is a timber-framed and weatherboarded structure with a slate roof which lies at the entrance to the valley approximately 100 m east of the house. It was built as a stable rather than a barn in the mid-19th century on the site of an earlier building, and rises to only 2.4 m at its eaves. The interior was originally divided into two compartments with a single entrance from an enclosed southern yard and contained a narrow feed store with an external loading hatch adjoining the farm track to the north. Features of this kind were known locally as chaff houses or chaff boxes and were often found in small stables of this kind which lacked hay lofts. The rear elevation reveals the outline of a high hay rack and manger, but these no longer survive. The barn was converted into an artists studio in 1926 and has been much altered (S1).