Farmstead record CLY 042 - Farmstead: High House Farm/Rede Wood Farm (Unknown)

High House Farm/Rede Wood Farm (Unknown), Claydon. 17th century farmstead and 19th farmhouse. Regular courtyard full plan formed by working agricultural buildings. The farmhouse is set away from the yard. Total change to the farmstead with loss if the historic farm buildings and farmhouse. Located within an isolated position (S1-6)

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.

In its present form, the barn consists of six bays with a porch on the borth side of bay 3, but until around the mid-20th century it continued east for approximately 3 additional bays, one of which had a norch facing porch. The concrete base for this demolished section still exists to the east of the barn and the present east wall was constructed after demolition. The bar is of timber frame construction on a red brick plinth with a weather boarded exterior and a corrugated asbsestos roof with three perspex panels to admit light. The barn was originally used for corn threshing and between the opposing doors of bay 3 the gault brick threshing floor survives. The timber frame is bolted rather than pegged and the arch braces supporting the tie beams have been removed but the mortice holes are visible. The collar roof has clasped,. Trenched purlins with bolted overlap joints. The roof would have originally been thatched or clay tiled but in the 29th century it was replaced with corrugated asbestos. The timber frame of the barn is largely intact, apart from at the east end, and dates from the late17th/early 18th century. The size of the barn before it was truncated is indicative of a prosperous mixed farmstead of reasonable size. A covered cattle yard of red brick and a clay pantile roof dates from the late 18th/early-19th century. Originally it was an open yard but it was covered in the later half of the 20th century. The south side of the cattle yard is a one and a half storey red brick building with a low-pitch, clay pantile roof which was used as a granary/milking parlour (S7).