Farmstead record STS 020 - Farmstead: Sparrows Farm

Sparrows Hall lies at the western end of the hamlet of Stanstead Street, approximately 700 metres south of Stanstead Hall and St James' church. Formerly known as Sparrows Farm, the grade II-listed 17th century house formed a smallholding of 49 acres in 1838 but the house and land were let separately by their owner. The site is now part of a modern ribbon development, and the barn complex behind the house is used as stabling. The barn is a typical mid-19th century timber-framed and weatherboarded structure of three bays on a tall flint and brick plinth with an integral lean-to porch and shed to the south. The barn uses timbers from a 17th C building which contained diamond mullion windows, perhaps a previous barn or from part of the farmhouse. A small neathouse and open-sided cattle shelter were added to its south-western corner at a slightly later date, along with a second shelter shed facing the northern paddock, and a large brick and flint vehicle shed was built against its eastern gable. The resulting complex formed a self-contained cattle unit of modest proportions and mixed traditional materials that illustrates the lower end of the mid-Victorian agricultural revolution (in contrast to the architect-designed 'model farms' built at the same time by local gentleman farmers). Despite these points of historic and aesthetic interest, the buildings are not of sufficient age or rarity to merit listing in their own right (S1).

Sparrows Farm, Stanstead. 19th century farmstead and 17th century farmhouse. Regular courtyard L-shaped plan formed by working agricultural buildings. The farmhouse is set away from the yard. Partial loss (less than 50%) of the traditional farm buildings. Located within a loose farmstead cluster (S2-7).

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.