Farmstead record SBT 047 - Farmstead: Green Farm

Green Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular U-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. Almost all working buildings have been replaced by modern sheds.

The present farmhouse is a timber-framed building of no later than c.1600, althoug heavily disguised by a brick façade in the late 19th century. The complex of farm buildings to the west fo the house is dominated by a late20th century grain store but also includes a large timber-framed barn of 7 bays and contains an integral stable with a hay loft in its two eatern bays. This structure dates fom the second quarter of the 19th century and may have been rebuilt in respons to the enclosure of the green in 1819. The entire roof was renewed in softwood and slate in the late-19th century or early-20th century to match the house and it was probably thatched initially. The wall framing consists of re-used timber with original knee-braces in the usual manner of its period the high quaility of the building is indicated by the decorative flint-rubble external facings to its tall brick plinths. An early lean-to addition on the south also contains flint-rubble with decorative lozenges formed by the bases of black-glass bottles. This lean-to incorporates a series of sheds including a tack room with wooden harness hooks adjoining the stable and a pair of grain stores flanking the threshing floor with circular apotropaic symbols cut into their original plaster. The flint-rubble also contains re-used dressed stone that may have been salavged from nearby Sibton Abbey. A later 19th century shelter shed projects from the front of the tack room but a counterpart shown to the west on early maps has been lost. Apart fom its roof the barn remains intact but the ground-floor walls of the stable have been largely removed, although its ceiling of roughly hewn, characterful joists survives with hay drops against both gables (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.