Farmstead record HMG 045 - Farmstead: Coppings Farm (LA) HBR HA

Coppings Farm, Hemingstone. 19th century farmstead and 18th century farmhouse. Regular courtyard U-shaped plan formed by working agricultural buildings. The farmhouse is set away from the yard. Partial loss (less than 50%) of the traditional farm buildings. Located within a hamlet (S1-6).

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.


Coppings Farm lies in open countryside at the western edge of Hemingstone and probably occupies an early site as it adjoins a medieval tye or common known as Broad Green on the south. The grade II-listed timber-framed farmhouse is described in the Schedule of Listed Buildings as an 18th century structure enlarged and remodelled in the 19th century. At the time of the Hemingstone tithe survey in 1838 the farm was a modest tenanted holding of 64 acres occupied by the eponymous William Copping. The adjoining field known as ‘Great Baldreys’ may indicate an earlier name for the site.

The barn to the rear of the farmhouse forms a mid-19th century multi-function example which survives with most if its original attached sheds and illustrates the extent to which the Victorian fashion for unified farm complexes penetrated even to the region’s smaller holdings. It consists chiefly of pantiled red-brick with boarded and clay-lump lean-to sheds to the north, east and west, and a pair of two-storied stable and granary wings flanking a narrow yard to the south. With the exception of a single lean-to shed (recently demolished) and minor repairs in cement block-work, the building’s original fabric and profile and remains unusually intact. The stable and the western gable of the barn incorporate the timber-framed walls of an early-17th century barn shown on the 1838 tithe map (from which the Victorian complex is absent). This consists of three bays on a north-south axis (at right-angles to the later barn) and retains evidence of externally trenched corner-braces: the conversion of its southern half into a stable and hay loft appears to pre-date its dramatic remodelling of the mid-19th century. The Victorian brick walls abut the earlier framing in an unusual and structurally adventurous manner that probably reflects the modest finances of the builder. Despite these economies the symmetry and mixed materials of the complex produces a visually attractive whole that reflects the more extensive ‘model’ farms found on larger gentry holdings (S7).