Farmstead record COK 125 - Farmstead: Smallbridge Farm

Smallbridge 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 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 modern sheds on the side. Most historic buildiings now converted for residential use. (S2-5)

At the time of the tithe survey in 1843 the farm was a mid-scale arable holding of 74 acres on the substantial estate of Thomas Wolton of Sutton Hall in Bradfield St Clare. The stable to the north of the farm yard is a flint-rubble structure with red-brick dressing that bears the date 1849 and the initials of William Thomas Wolton, who inherited on the death of his father in 1847. The rest of the farm buildings appear to have been rebuilt at much the same period on the sites of earlier structures depicted in 1843, and the farmhouse was extensively remodelled.

The barn is a timber-framed and weatherboarded structure with an eastern porch and an intact brick threshing floor. Its fabric is typical of the mid-19th century, with nailed primary wall braces and roof collars, bolted knee-braces and copious re-used timber that may have been salvaged from its predecessor of 1843. The building formerly extended by a further two bays to the north, matching those which survive to the south of the porch, but was truncated in the mid-20th century. There is also evidence of an open-sided lean-to which adjoined the missing bays to form a cart lodge or implement shelter. The well-preserved clasped-purlin roof is now covered with corrugated iron but was probably thatched initially, although pantiles and peg-tiles cannot be ruled out, and much of the weatherboarding has been renewed. An area of impressive original elm boards, each 11 inches wide (28 cms), survives to the west where it was protected by a slightly later lean-to shed. The external surfaces are weathered but retain traces of the whitewash with which many local barns were painted before the arrival of tar as a cheap by-product of town gas production during the third quarter of the 19th century (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.