Farmstead record NDG 017 - Farmstead: Vine Farm

Vine Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular courtyard L-plan with additional detached elements. The farmhouse is attached to the agricultural range. The farmstead sits alongside a public road in a loose farmstead cluster. There has been a partial loss of working buildings with the remaining converted for 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 brick Barn and Cartlodge form a group with the Thatched Barn and Vine Farm House, representing the former farmstead of Vine Farm. The building comprises the two-storey brick barn at it south end, with the partly collapsed timber-framed cartlodge extending northwards forming a T-plan. The Cartlodge is currently rectangular on plan, but it may be noted that early maps show a less regular plan form with a projection on the east side. The barn is a well built structure of 9” red brickwork laid in Monk Bond brickwork, with segmental-arched openings for doors and windows; some of the latter appearing to be re-used from elsewhere. It is assumed to be of C18 or C19 origin, and may have once been used as workshop or for stabling, with a hayloft at first floor level. Two of the first floor openings have slatted external panels, probably to prevent birds entering through windows that needed to be kept open for ventilation. The cartlodge is ab earthen floored four bay oak (?) timber-framed structure is assumed also to date from the late C18 or C19, but is in very poor condition. It was last clad in vertical softwood boarding which may have replaced conventional weatherboarding. The pantiled roof has largely collapsed in recent storms despite the efforts of the owner to prop and restrain it (S1).