Farmstead record WGW 041 - Farmstead: White Hall Farm (LA) HAA

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Summary

White Hall Farm, Worlingworth. 19th century farmstead and 16th century farmhouse. Loose courtyard four-sided plan formed by working agricultural buildings. The farmhouse is set away from the yard. Significant loss (over 50%) of the traditional farm buildings . Located within a loose farmstead cluster.

Location

Grid reference Centred TM 2082 6898 (108m by 101m)
Map sheet TM26NW
Civil Parish WORLINGWORTH, MID SUFFOLK, SUFFOLK

Map

Type and Period (4)

Full Description

White Hall Farm, Worlingworth. 19th century farmstead and 16th century farmhouse. Loose courtyard four-sided plan formed by working agricultural buildings. The farmhouse is set away from the yard. Significant loss (over 50%) of the traditional farm buildings . Located within a loose farmstead cluster (S1-5).

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.

White Hall Farm lies in open countryside at the western edge of Worlingworth parish, approximately 300 m from the Southolt boundary. Until its enclosure in 1832 the site adjoined the northern edge of a large medieval green known as Worlingworth Green, an evocative fragment of which still survives in the paddock between the grade II-listed farmhouse and the modern road to the south. The list description dates the present timber-framed house to the late-16th century, but it is conspicuous by its absence from a manuscript map of circa 1606 and must have been built very shortly afterwards. Documentary evidence suggests it may occupy the same location as a medieval property that disappeared when the greenside settlement contracted after the Black Death. The original building was a small ‘two cell’ dwelling containing a hall with a large chimney adjoining its eastern gable and a pair of service rooms on the west. This was doubled in size within a decade or two to form a pair of almost identical tenements, each with a hall and parlour flanking a central chimney. These dwellings may have been let separately by an absentee landlord or served different generations of the same family. By 1838 the farm was a modest tenanted holding of 52.5 acres in two separate blocks of land – the amalgamation of which into a single farm may have occasioned the enlargement of the house. The evolution of both the house and its farm land is unusual and of considerable historic interest. The key elements of the timber frame remain intact, including two early-17th century roof structures with clasped purlins and wind-braces, but the building was heavily restored in circa 1980. This restoration saw the introduction of many second-hand timbers, particularly in the earlier western half of the house, and care is now required to distinguish old from new. The farm buildings to the rear of the property were largely rebuilt at much the same time, but it is still possible to distinguish the remains of an L-shaped range that appears on the Ordnance Survey of 1884. This consists of an open-sided shelter-shed and an enclosed cattle shed that illustrate the agricultural changes of the mid-19th century and are accordingly of some historic significance despite their alterations. The nearby barn had been demolished by 1979 and its site is currently occupied by a covered swimming pool (S7).

Sources/Archives (7)

  • --- Unpublished document: Alston, L.. 2013. Heritage Asset Assessment: White Hall Farm, Southolt Road, Worlingworth.
  • <S1> Unpublished document: Campbell, G., and McSorley, G. 2019. SCCAS: Farmsteads in the Suffolk Countryside Project.
  • <S2> Map: Ordnance Survey. 1880s. Ordnance Survey 25 inch to 1 mile map, 1st edition.
  • <S3> Map: Ordnance Survey. c 1904. Ordnance Survey 25 inch to 1 mile map, 2nd edition. 25".
  • <S4> Vertical Aerial Photograph: various. Google Earth / Bing Maps.
  • <S5> Map: Ordnance Survey. 1949. Ordnance Survey 6 inch to 1, mile, 3rd edition. 1:10,560.
  • <S6> Map: 1837. Worlingworth Tithe Map.

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Related Events/Activities (2)

Record last edited

Nov 10 2022 2:46PM

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