Farmstead record BRN 019 - Farmstead: Chesnut Tree Farm

Chesnut Tree Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed OS map and the Brandeston Tithe map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular H-plan pattern with the farmhouse detached and set on the opposite side of the road. The farmstead sits on eitherside of a private track in a loose farmstead cluster. This farmstead has survived intact.

The site consists of a red-brick farmhouse which ostensibly dates from the early- to mid-19th century and a broadly contemporary timber-framed threshing barn with an adjoining stable of the same period. All three buildings appear on the parish tithe map of 1844, at which time the farm was a modest tenanted arable holding of 40.75 acres. The map showed a second shed adjoining the opposite side of the barn, along with a lean-to against its northern gable, but these were rebuilt on the same footprints at the beginning of the 20th century when a new shelter-shed and loose box were added to the complex. The weatherboarded and pantiled barn is a three-bay structure with an intact butt-purlin roof and an integral lean-to rear porch with storage compartments on each side. the building is of special historic interest given its exceptional state of preservation and it contains one of the best gault-brick threshing floors in the county. The survival of both sets of half-hung doors is also unusual, but the building’s chief importance derives from the remarkably well preserved area of original external reddle (red ochre pigment) in a small shed which was built as an early extension in the angle of the barn and porch. The adjoining contemporary stable is also of historic interest despite the loss of its roof structure and most of its hay loft in the 20th century: small stables of this kind are far less common than larger examples, and together the two buildings illustrate the sophisticated nature of the farm complexes found even on the region’s more modest farms (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.