Farmstead record EBG 040 - Farmstead: High Trees Farm

High Trees Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a linear plan with the farmhouse detached and set away from the yards. The farmstead sits alongside a public road in a village location. There has been a significant loss of working buildings with the remaining converted for residential use. (S2-5)

High Trees Farm adjoins open countryside on the northern edge of the modern village of East Bergholt. The grade II-listed farmhouse is a 15th century open hall with a later brick facade in 1844 it formed a substantial tenanted holding of 166 acres on the Old Hall estate. The two timber-framed and weatherboarded threshing barns are of similar scale and appearance, both with gabled porches to the south-west, but are of slightly different periods: the southernmost barn dates from circa 1820 and is shown on the enclosure map of 1817, while the northernmost replaced an earlier barn on the opposite side of the farm track in c.1860. They represent good examples of 19th century East Anglian threshing barns; one reflecting the cereal boom of the Napoleonic wars and the other, in conjunction with its attached cattle yard and shelter-sheds, the 'Victorian High Farming' movement of the mid-19th century. Both buildings incorporate copious re-used timber, but subtle differences in the fabric of their walls and roof structures illustrate the movement from fully jointed framing towards the nailed softwood which became ubiquitous at the end of the 19th century. They once formed part of an unusual linear complex of enclosed Victorian cattle yards as shown on the Ordnance Survey of 1882. The extent to which the site's historic context and interest has been depleted by demolition, coupled with the replacement of the barns' original cladding and roofing, means that neither is likely to meet the strict English Heritage criteria for listing (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.