Farmstead record BNL 029 - Farmstead: Potash Farm

Potash Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed OS Map and the Benhall Tithe map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular L-plan pattern. The farmhouse is detached and set away from the yard. The farmstead is set alongside a public road in an isolated position. The farmhouse and one range of the L-plan remains intact.

Potash Farm lies at the northern edge of Benhall parish. During the 1847 tithe survey it formed a tenanted holding on the Benhall Lodge estate. No buildings on the site are listed but the rendered farmhouse may date from the 17th century or before. The agricultural buildings are all from the middle of the 19th century and are historically significant as they illustrate Victorian High Farming. The main barn is a timber-framed and weatherboarded threshing barn of three bays with a central entrance and a lean-to porch. It contains bolted knee-braces with nailed primary wall-braces and roof collars in contrast to the arch-braces and pegged joints associated with the first half of the 19th century, and while it may represent the barn of similar outline shown on the 1847 map it was probably built in the following decade. Its wall and roof framing survives largely intact, except for the covering. The barn re-uses a number of 17th C timbers, which potentially come from an earlier barn on this site. The milking parlour adjoining it was almost certainly built as a contemporary stable and retains a good ceiling, but in other respects has been much altered. The most unusual structure on the site is a detached single-storied granary. This diminutive building of circa 1860 rests on its original cast-iron 'mushrooms' and is a rare survival of a type that was never common in Suffolk (where granaries more typically lay above cart lodges). Despite their local historic significance, however, the various buildings on the site do not 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.