Farmstead record BSM 097 - Farmstead: Hold Farm (Hole Farm)

Hole Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular T-plan. 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. (S2-5)

The grade II-listed farmhouse is a nationally important Tudor watermill of the early-16th century that belonged to Smallbridge Hall 1 km to the south-east. 1680 the building had been converted into a farmhouse known as Russells Farm. The barn to the south of the house is a well preserved ‘Napoleonic’ timber-framed and weatherboarded threshing barn of five bays with a half-hipped pantiled roof. It was entered by full-height doors from the farm entrance on the east but possessed a gabled rear porch with smaller doors that was designed to extend the length of the threshing floor. This barn was shown as one of five farm buildings on the 1837 map and dates from circa 1820. The building is of special historic interest as its structure contains both bolted knee-braces and traditional arch-braces, reflecting a period of transition between the two forms, but its doors were removed and their apertures glazed during a partial conversion of circa 1990. In the 1850s house was provided with a new southern range and most of the outbuildings were demolished. A sophisticated new complex of walled cattle yards was added to the barn, with a slate-roofed range of shelter-sheds incorporating a door sliding on iron bogey wheels of identical form to those of Wythe’s major new ‘model farm’ at Smallbridge. The four yards have since been combined into two, and the northern range of sheds demolished, but the site still illustrates the new yard-based system of mid-19th century animal husbandry known today as Victorian High Farming. It is rare for walled yards of this period to have survived the ravages of 20th century agriculture (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.