Farmstead record THD 070 - Farmstead: Lampits Farm

Lampits Farm, Thorndon. 19th century farmstead and 16th century farmhouse. Regular courtyard full plan formed by working agricultural buildings, with additional detached elements. The farmhouse is set away from the yard. Significant loss (over 50%) of the traditional farm buildings. Located within an isolated position (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.

Lampits Farm occupies a double-moated medieval manorial site with documented Pre- Conquest origins. Its name derives from the Lampet family which appears to have owned the
property at least from the beginning of the 14th century to the end of the 16th. The present grade II-listed farmhouse is an early-16th century timber-framed and jettied structure of
unusually large scale with an internal width of 19.5 ft between its roof-plates and a central hall of almost 30 ft in length. Despite these high-status proportions the hall ceiling is plainly
chamfered but there is evidence of roll-moulded decoration in an apparent ‘great chamber’ immediately above. The building is of exceptional historic interest with a number of unusual
features including an ostensibly fully-framed chimney bay between the hall and parlour, and the forthcoming replacement of its cement render is likely to offer significant new insight into its original appearance and layout. At the beginning of the 17th century a large wing that included a kitchen with a separate cross-passage was added to the rear, possibly in 1598/9
when an inventory recorded extensive building materials stored outside the southern entrance to the moat. The roof of this wing contained two large dormer windows overlooking the moat and may be contemporary with the insertion of a new chimney in the early-16th century crosspassage. By the time of the Thorndon tithe survey in 1838 the property was a large tenanted farm of over 230 acres and soon afterwards a new ‘High Victorian’ complex of mid-19th century farm buildings was added to the site (as detailed in auction particulars of 1919). A single-storied outbuilding to the north-west of the house represents the much altered remains of a cattle yard belonging to this complex. It lies in the approximate centre of the moat and may overlie archaeological evidence of the farmhouse’s medieval predecessor (S7).