Farmstead record KBA 021 - Farmstead: Wagger Farm

Wagger Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular courtyard U-plan. The farmhouse is detached and set away from the yard. The farmstead sits alongside a public road in an isolated location. There has been a partial loss of working buildings with the remaining converted for residential use. (S2-5)

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.

The grade II-listed house is a substantial timber-framed and rendered farmhouse of the 17th century that recycles many timbers from its 15th century predecessor and may retain a section of medieval rear wall in situ. The site is well documented in the Middle Ages, when it was known as Wigges or Wiggeslond, and its name probably represents a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon personal name Wicga. The north-facing house reflects the standard layout of its period, with an unusually long but narrow central hall of two bays flanked by a service bay to the west and a parlour cross-wing to the east. The cross-wing is a slightly later addition which replaced a smaller parlour on the same axis as the hall, and contains a stair turret in a small lean-to. The service bay was originally divided into a buttery and pantry of unequal size but now forms a single kitchen. Both the hall and service bays consist largely of re-used timber, including sooted rafters that were probably salvaged from the 15th century house on the site, and part of the latter’s rear wall appears to survive intact. Much of the evidence of any medieval survival is currently hidden by render. In the late-19th century the farmhouse was divided into three labourers’ cottages with various rear extensions, but was restored to a single dwelling in the 20th century. Despite this process of conversion the building’s front elevation retains its original proportions and much of its 17th century character (S1).