Farmstead record YAX 034 - Farmstead: Bulls Hall

Bulls Hall is a late 16th C timber-framed farmhouse with a queen strut roof. A number of major alterations were made to the farmhouse during the 18th and 19th C. An inventory of 1661 lists a number of other buildings at the site including a buttery a dairy, barn, stable and carthouse. The barn, stable and carthouse all exist today but aren't though to be the original structures included in the inventory (S1).

The farm buildings were built in two phases during the mid-19th century. An earlier barn was shown on the tithe map of 1839, and the present buildings are likely to replace successive predecessors as they occupy the site of a small medieval manor documented from before the Norman Conquest. The threshing barn with it's adjoining stable and cow shed date from the 1840s, along with a large detached cart lodge in sevven bays, and form a historically significant group which survuves largely intact. They combine traditional methods of construction such as timber-framing infilled with wattle-and-daub with new Victorian features such as bolted knee-braces, pantiles and a threshing floor of stone flags. Of particular interest is the original 'two-tier' external cladding of roughclast clay render above weatherboarding which survives on the barn and cow-shed; a once common technique in northern Suffolk for which good evidence is now rare. The barn is now an impressive five-bay example of 19.5m in length with a gabled porch facing the farmhouse, and the adjoining stable preserves an unusual cobbled floor with central drain and a blocked hay drop against its gable. A series of wooden harness hooks remains in situ in its small tack room. The cow-shed was initially divided into three loose boxes entered from a yard in front of the barn. The cattle yeard was enlarged in the 1860s and provided with a new flint-rubble wall in conjunction with a new shelter-shed for the stable and a red-brick cow shed facing a pair of new cattle yards to the south of the barn. A pair of new shelter-sheds between these yards now survives only as fragmentary brick walls. The second phase of construction illiustrates the typr of rapid expansion known as Victorian High Farming (S1).

Bull's Hall, Yaxley. 19th century farmstead and 16th century farmhouse with converted buildings. Regular courtyard multi-yard 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 an isolated position (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.