Farmstead record FSM 029 - Farmstead: Hollow Road Farm (Fornham Farm)

Fornham Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a loose courtyard plan. The farmstead sits alongside a private track in an isolated location. This farmstead has been completely lost with a waste hub now on site. (S1-4)

The Ordnance Survey First Edition 1:10,560 of 1887 shows the site, then called Fordham Farm, positioned on the southern boundary of a rectangular field. The farm itself comprised a range of structures some of which are still present. Within the broader landscape there is evidence of extractive activity, a gravel pit to the north and a chalk pit to the west but the bulk of the landscape is divided up into rectilinear fields of various sizes suggesting it is largely an enclosure award agricultural landscape of fields. The 1989 1:10,000 mapping shows the farm buildings as a more nucleated group suggesting some of the outer structures had been demolished. It also shows a small square building to the immediate east of the farm and a greenhouse to the southeast. The largest change on this map was the presence of Compiegne Way, which appears to have partially adopted Hollow Road as one of its carriageways. In 1999, land within the western part of the site was in agricultural use and had clearly been ploughed and harrowed in the image on Google Earth. The Google Earth image of 2007 shows evidence of ground disturbance within the site in the form of earthmoving and stockpiling (Photograph 2) and clearly by this time the ground to the west of the farm had been taken out of cultivation. Comparison between the aerial photographs shows some changes in the buildings present, with the addition of a larger square structure to the north and a structure with an increased footprint on the east side. The site comprises a complex of buildings at the eastern end, some of which were part of the farm, with many later additions. The complex is contained within an areas used for stockpiling of road planings that extends westwards from the buildings. The A134 forms the western boundary of the PDA with access from an established roundabout at the meeting of the A134 and A143. The PDA is overshadowed by the sugar beet processing plant about 600m to the south. The western boundary of the PDA is defined by a mature hedge with trees (S5).

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.