Farmstead record CHV 032 - Farmstead: Chevington Hall Farm

Chevington Hall Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular E-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 significant loss of working buidlings with modern sheds on the side. (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.

Taken from NRHE record:
(TL 78906020) Moat (NR)
Chevington Hall Farm. On the site of (NAT) Chevington Hall (NR)


The site of Chevington Hall, a retiring place for the abbot of St. Edmund's monastery, mentioned in 1309, is on the north east side of the church, and is now occupied by a farmhouse. The deep moat and high rampart remain, but there are no vestiges of the original building. The area within the moat, which is 40ft wide, is about 4 acres. The terraces cut on the rampart are visible here and there and beyond the moat on the north side is a mound, used possibly as an outpost or observatory. There was an ancient mill belonging to the hall.
The hunting lodge stood in the park at some little distance north west from the hall and is now the site of a farmhouse (probably Chevington Lodge Farm), which retains no traces of the original building. The place has long been disparked.

Chevington Hall Farm (name verified), is a 16th century building with extensive 18th-19th century alterations. It is not outstanding, see photo. No trace of the original Chevington Hall can be seen, although according to the owners (a) large quantities of dressed and undressed stone have been found in the grounds surrounding the present house.
The farm is enclosed by a strong, sub-rectangular homestead moat, cut into a slight southerly slope. It measures overall 280.0m east-west by 200.0m transversely. The north west and south arms are generally dry, averaging 24.0m wide by 4.0m deep and have the remains of an inner bank varying between 2.0m and 4.5m high. The north arm has traces of an outer bank 0.5m high. The east arm has been widened to 70.0m to form two large fishponds.
Recent cleaning of silt in the south pond, now mostly reed bed, has left a small moat like waterfilled section. A causeway between the ponds gives access to the island and is almost certainly the original entrance. A second entrance at the south angle has now been removed.
Water was supplied by a stream at the north west angle and drained from the north east on the outside edge of the north west angle, is an elongated mound 2.5m high with a ramped access on its south west side. This is presumably the mound mentioned by Authority 2 but its purpose is obscure.
Published 25" survey revised.

There is no evidence of a hunting lodge at Chevington Lodge Farm. The present farmhouse is 19th century but the original, now cottages, dates from 1600. No trace of the limits of the park can be found and local enquiries and research in Bury St. Edmunds Records Office proved negative.