Farmstead record BSC 034 - Farmstead: Pitchers Green Farm

Pitcher's Green Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular L-plan with additional detached elements. The farmhouse is detached and set away from the yard. The farmstead sits alongside a private track in an isolated location. This farmstead survives intact with additional modern sheds on site. (S1-4)

The farm buildings date from the 19th century although the farm probably has medieval origins. They include a five bay 'Napoleonic' weatherboarded threshing barn of c.1800 that consists of largely re-used timber including trenched external braces that unusually appear to have been used for decorative affect alongside diagonal primary braces that are more typical of the period. The intact clasped-purlin roof, now covered with corrugated asbestos, is also unusual in containing a lower tier of butt-purlins only on one side of the central threshing bay. A mid-19th century brick and pantiled shelter-shed for cattle which adjoins the surviving barn illustrates the system of Victorian High Farming and contains a loose box of vernacular clay-lump. A similar shelter-shed adjoins an early 19th century stable which forms the boundary with Bishop's Farm and contains a unusually well preserved boarded granary but otherwise has been stripped of it's fixtures and fittings. A late-19th century cart lodge flanks the site's northern entrance and a Fletton-brock milking parlour of 1955 r 56 lies to the west of a covered cattle yard built in the 1970s and supported by re-used telegraph poles. The farm was among the last in the region to keep a significant dairy herd and the four abreast milking equipment from the parlour now resides at the Museum of East Anglian Life (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.