Farmstead record BOY 098 - Farmstead: Valley Farmhouse

Valley Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed OS map and the Boyton Tithe map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular F-plan with a detached linear elements and a further smaller detached U-plan. The farmhouse is detached and set away from the yard. The farmhouse is a Grade II-listed red-brick farmhouse built by the Mary Warner Charity in three separate phases between 1743 and the mid-19th century. One range from the F plan and two ranges from the L plan are all that remain of the working buildings. There are large modern working buildings on site. This represents a significant (50%) loss of working buildings. The farmstead is next to a public road in an isolated position.

Grade II-listed red-brick farmhouse built by the Mary Warner Charity in three separate phases between 1743 and the mid-19th century.The oldest part of the house adjoins the road and was built in the mid- to late-18th century as the service cross-wing of an earlier house on the east. A tie-beam of the 15th or 16th century on the upper storey may represent a fragment of this structure, but there is no sign of the closely studded 17th century timber frame with a later brick facade described in the Schedule of Listed Buildings. The earlier house, the origins of which may well be traceable in the Warner Charity’s extensive archives, was rebuilt in the early-19th century with good quality flat arches of rubbed brick to its eternal windows and doors. This may have occurred between 1798 and 1814 when the farm’s annual lease more than doubled. Soon afterwards the adjoining section of the service wing was raised and re-roofed to match the higher walls of the new house. The 1843 tithe map shows two structures of unequal size projecting from the resulting northern facade, but these were swept away by the present symmetrical northern range with twin gables flanking an integral porch in or about the 1860s. The floors and ceilings of this Victorian addition were higher than those of the Georgian range in order to accommodate a cellar with an external access, but this unusual arrangement was removed as recently as circa 2000. The interior has been much altered in at least two and probably more phases of refurbishment during the latter part of the 20th century, with most of the property’s Georgian character now confined to its relatively original exterior (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.