Building record MWN 024 - Barn at Poplar Farm, Cretingham Road

The site consists of a grade II-listed farmhouse, dated in the listing schedule to the 18th century, with a barn a various attached sheds adjoining the road to the north-west. At the time of the tithe survey in 1840the farm was a relatively modest tenanted arable holding of 44.5 acres. The timber-framed and weatherboarded threshing barn is entered from the road by an integral gabled porch and can be dated on stylistic grounds to circa 1820. its distinctive outline is shown on the tithe map along with the small adjoining timber-framed and weatherboarded stable. The barn's wall fabric survives largely intact, but its present shallow pitched roof of corrugated iron is a replacement of the mid-20th century, as is that of the stable. A single bay of the original clasped-purlin structure remains intact in the porch, along with a single original truss in the stable and would allow both roofs to be appropriately restored as part of any future conversion. A pantiled lean-to adjoining the porch was also present in 1840, but was largely rebuilt in circa 1880 when a brick and pantiled shed was added to the corner of the stable. Sales particulars of 1904 include a list of the resulting complex's separate compartments, from which only two open-sided shelter-sheds have since been lost; a threshing barn with an asphalt floor, a cart horse stable, a bullock shed, a root house, a yard, a brick and tiled horse shed and loose box, a nag stable, a colt shed and another yard. A tiled wagon lodge was also mentioned, but this is likely to have been a detached structure to the south-west which no logger survives. Given the loss of any relevant internal fixtures and fittings it is now impossible to located all of these units with any confidence, but the remaining buildings illustrate the compact and sophisticated nature of 19th century barn complexed even at the lower end of the farming scale. The barn and stable also reflect the agricultural boom in Suffolk during and immediately after the Napoleonic wars (S1).