Farmstead record COP 014 - Farmstead: Copdock Hall

Copdock Hall is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular U-plan. The farmhouse is detached and set away from the yard. The farmstead sits alongside a public road in an isolated location. This farmstead survives intact. (S2-5)

Barn currently listed grade II, but warrants re-listing at Grade II* as one of the finest brick barns in Britain. Probably built c.1590 and designed as part of an ostentatious base courtyard, through which the Hall was approached from the N. The hall remains unlisted, though merits a listing at grade II. The hall is vital to the historic context of the barn, which forms part of an important and exceptionally well preserved 16th C seigniorial landscape in conjunction with the adjacent parish church.

The barn is of exceptional scale, extending 38mx7.9m. The walls are 60cm thick and rise 5m at their eaves, a structure that would have been an expensive build. The building contains 2 threshing floors, large doorways facing the courtyard in front of the hall and smaller ones towards the rear, though one was destroyed in the 19th C. the building is otherwise unusually well preserved, with its roof containing two tiers of butt-purlins in 14 bays, with wind-braces to the upper tier and survives largely in-tact with edge halved and bridle scarf joints of Tudor type in its wall plates. It is ventilated by impressive array of rectangular loops in 3 tiers and decorated in diaperwork in glazed headers. The brickwork was painted externally and the S gable retains rare evidence of Elizabethan plasterwork imitating stone quoins. A recessed rectangular plaque in the centre of the W façade has been protected by a lean-to shelter and may retain important ownership or date inscriptions beneath the later white wash.
A matching gabled porch to the southern entrance is a slightly later 17th C addition, whilst the lean-to porch built against the E elevation along with three brick buttresses date to the early 19th C. the present slate roof likely replaced an original roof of peg tiles when a single storied range of brick and slate yard sheds were built to the W in the mid-19th C (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.