Farmstead record OTY 059 - Farmstead: Wood Farm

Wood Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular U-plan with the farmhouse detached and set away from the yard. The farmstead sits alongside a public road in a hamlet location. There has been a significant loss of working buildings (S1-4).

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 small eastern barn appears to have been built as an open cart shed design compromising the large room only with enclosed west and east walls, but an open gable end to the north and south. The barn has been modified soon after being built with the addition of the smaller room to the east of the main barn room. The barn was further modified by the insertion of a wall into the northern gable end and the intersection of a doorway into the southern gable end either contemporary or later then the addition of the eastern room. There have also been modern modifications to the eastern barn with the addition of the lean to on the western side of the barn. The roof is made of large main tie-beams and collar roof members that are formed from hand shaped timbers while the other roofing members of the purlins and top plate and brace are formed from machine sawn timbers.

The large barn is a threshing barn. The main historic barn at the centre with later south east and north west additions. This barn is of red brick footings with a machined timber floor plate, top plate, braces and studs. The red brick is of a similar type has the eastern barn and is bonded using a lime mortar. The studs however do differ in the eastern barn as they are machine stripped wood which have been quartered sectioned. The historical parts of the western barn, namely the central portion, are of the same building style and form as the eastern barn with only slight differences in size. These two barns would have been built together as part of a barn building program and would have fulfilled supporting storage roles as part of an early to mid-19th century farm complex (S5).