Farmstead record BRR 049 - Farmstead: Barrow Hall Farm

Barrow Hall Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular multi-yard with E-plan, L-plan, linear, and covered elements 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 buildings with large modern sheds on site. (S1-4)

Barrow Hall is on the northern edge of Barrow. The grade II-listed farmhouse is ostensibly from the 17th century but possibly of earlier origin. At the time of the 1839 tithe survey the property was a tenanted farm of 1079.5 acres on Ickworth estate. The substantial timber-framed and thatched barn to the south of the farmhouse is separately listed at grade II. It is externally plastered and there is evidence for red ochre pigment around the barn's two porches. Built in nine bays with two threshing floors and a rear aisle it occupies the precise position of an earlier barn shown in 1597 and contains a number of re-used timbers. It extends >34 m in length and contains an impressive array of original arch-braces to its tie-beams and arcade plates. Much of the 'two-tier' external pargeted lime plaster above weatherboarding to the northern facade is also original, but the two hipped porches to the same elevation appear to have been added shortly afterwards. Their exposed render retains traces of the red ochre with which many local farm buildings were treated before the advent of tar in the late-19th century. Although dated to the late-17th or early-18th century in the Schedule of Listed Buildings, the structure is in fact a fine example of an early-19th century 'Napoleonic' barn, and it continues to merit listing despite this later origin. The roof structure of clasped purlins with a lower tier of butt-purlins and fully hipped gables survives largely intact, although the aisle roof has been rebuilt and altered during the 19th century. A series of flint sheds with tiled roofs were added to the western gable in circa 1870; this includes buildings used as a stable and a cartlodge.

This survey was carried out prior to the conversion of the barn (S5).

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.