Farmstead record DLL 027 - Farmstead: Moat Farm

Moat Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed OS map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular L-plan with an additional Z-plan range and further detached elements. The farmhouse is detached and set away from the yard. The farmstead is set alongside a public road in an isolated location. There has been a significant loss of working buildings with large scale modern infrastructure on site.

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.

The 1922 auction particulars list a number of tiled or thatched farm buildings including a two-stall riding stable for the farmhouse, as well as cart horse stabling for six, a harness room, chaff house with a loft over, a root house or barn, a three-bay cart lodge with loft over, a cow house with stalls for five cows, bullock yards, a large barn, piggeries, cattle sheds and a fowl house. 12 The bulk of these must have been within the immediate setting of the farmhouse, although it is perhaps possible that a few were located to the southwest on the site of Lower Farm. All of these but the barn have since been demolished or replaced. The moat also enclosed an orchard at the time of the auction which at least partially survives. Only one historic farm building survived at Moat Farm at the time of survey (2021); an eighteenth century timber framed, and weatherboarded structure which was probably originally constructed as a threshing barn. This much altered structure is located on the southern side of the former farmyard facing the farmhouse. It once formed part of a larger range of farm buildings which are illustrated in a 1965 ariel photograph. Until the later twentieth century this range extended both to the west and to the east of the barn. The eastern section appearing to have been a brick structure of probably nineteenth century date. After 1966 a lean to range of probably early to mid-twentieth century date, projecting from its courtyard elevation, was also removed.

Moat Farmhouse is a substantial jettied timber framed structure which probably dates from the second half of the sixteenth century. It is highly likely to be a rebuilding of an earlier farmhouse. The moated site is therefore probably of considerably earlier origins than the present standing fabric and may relate to the manorial lands of the Earls of Dallinghoo. The present farmhouse consists of two ranges which stand at a 90 degree angle to each other; the entrance façade of the principal range facing south towards the farmyard, which probably has eighteenth century origins. The principal range is of two storeys with an attic, the service wing of one and a half storeys. The principal range consists of three linearly arranged cells, with a substantial brick stack between the western and central rooms, which is likely to at least partially date from the original construction of the house. At the western end was the parlour with the principal bedroom above. The original external entrance within the principal range was probably within the southern wall of the central room which served as a kitchen/hall. The eastern end of the principal range was extended to the east by a bay in the eighteenth century and probably remodelled to form a circulation area. The status of this part of the range also changed at the same time from being a service area, to part of the polite accommodation within the house. This part of the house was heavily remodelled in the 1970s (S4).