Building record OFF 043 - Outbuildings at Malting House

Circa 1830 timber-framed outbuilding on the site of a Grade II listed house. By the time of the Ordnance Survey of 1881 a large weatherboarded extension had been added to its southern gable, almost certainly forming a three-bay barn with a central entrance that may have replaced another barn that abutted Ipswich Road in 1840. An open-sided shelter-shed for cattle flanked a small yard on the east in the usual manner of Victorian farmsteads, but major changes occurred at the beginning of the 20th century. These included the addition of a large lean-to shed to the north and the insertion of a new partition to divide the two southern bays of the barn from the rest of the structure. Parts of the barn were also rebuilt and clad in vertical boarding, and large glazed windows were inserted into the original eastern entrance and the internal partition. This process resulted in a highly abnormal building that is understood locally to have operated as commercial repair workshop for traction engines and represents unusual evidence of industrial activity at village level. The gable fireplace was presumably used as a forge and was provided with a new lintel consisting of a re-used iron girder, and in the mid-20th century the two southern bays were re-roofed as a lean-to (S1).