Farmstead record TDM 036 - Farmstead: Church Farm

Church Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a dispersed plan. The farmstead sits alongside a public road in a village location. There has been a partial loss of working buildings with some of the remaining converted for residential use.

The farmhouse to the east is listed at grade II and descrivbed in Historic England's schedule as a mid-16th century timber-framed and rendered structure that was restored in circa 1980 after a period of dereliction. The farm buildings form a linear range of sheds and covered yards to the north-west that back onto a medieval road now used as a foot path. The red brick granary and stable lie in the north-western corner of the site and adjoin the boundary of the neighbouring property which is focused on a newly converted mid-19th century brick barn. The granary was built soon after 1838 with a ground-floor wagon lodge entered by an open-ended south-western gable. The granary on the upper storey is reached by an internal stair rising from an external door at tge opposite end of its façade. There is no evidence of grain bins but the hipped pantiled roof structure was entirely renewed in softwood during the mid-20th century. The granary's south-western gable consists of weatherboarded studwork above the entrance to the wagon lodge and contains a secondary loading hatch that interrupts the original timbers. The brickwork and ceiling joists of uniformly sawn pine are fully consistent with the 1840s or 50s and a board nailed to the front wall bearing the date 1784 has been salvaged from elsewhere. The same date has also been carved several times into the internal brickwork of the grain floor, but this graffiti cuts through the later whitewash and is spurious. At the beginning of the 20th century a new shed with an integral stable was built alongside to extend the original wagon lodge and create a larger, enclosed cart shed. The building remains a good example of a traditional form that is more common in timbe than brick, but its distinctive open gable is now hidden by the extension (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.