Building record SEJ 041 - Abbey Farm, The Street

Abbey Farm is a grade II-listed timber-framed Tudor house of considerable historic interest. It originally reflected the standard domestic layout of its period, with a central hall flanked on the west by a cross-passage and service rooms and on the east by a chimney and parlour. The service end of the house has been demolished, but the two-bay hall is a mid-16th century structure with an impressive queen-post roof, ‘diamond-mullion’ windows and a roll-moulded binding joist in its ceiling. It was initially lit by an ostentatious oriel window which projected beyond the plane of the front wall. The largely intact ‘plank-and-muntin’ screen in the middle of the hall has been moved from its former position against the cross-passage, but is a particularly fine example which retains a number of apotropaic symbols intended to protect the house from evil spirits. The parlour is a later rebuilding of circa 1600 which also possesses a queen-post roof but in combination with an ovolo-moulded ceiling joist and mullions. It probably replaced a smaller medieval parlour on the same site. The original chimney between the hall and parlour was unfortunately demolished to accommodate a new staircase in the mid-20th century, having allegedly suffered bomb damage during the war. The three-bay barn to the rear of the house is also an impressive survival which is listed in its own right; it dates from the early-17th century and contains a fine roof of staggered butt-purlins and wind-braces with evidence of an original stable to the north of its central entrance. At the timeof the tithe survey in 1842 the farm was a modest tenanted holding of 30 acres, and its present name is of uncertain origin; much of parish belonged to the Bishops of Norwich during the Middle Ages, and it is entirely possible that it was once in ecclesiastical ownership.