Farmstead record FRD 032 - Farmstead: Red House Farm

Red House Farm, Framsden. 19th century farmstead and farmhouse. Regular courtyard multi-yard plan formed by working agricultural buildings. The farmhouse is set away from the yard. Partial loss (less than 50%) of the traditional farm buildings. Located within a loose farmstead cluster (S1-6).

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 farm buildings at Red House Farm form an unusually complete ‘model farm’ built in or about the 1860s for a large tenanted holding on the wealthy Helmingham Hall estate. The site was shown as an empty paddock on the 1839 tithe map but almost all the new structures depicted on the 25-inch Ordnance Survey of 1883 are still present. The complex comprises a substantial timber-framed and weatherboarded double-threshing barn to the north of two cattle yards and a horse yard served by three open-sided shelter-sheds flanked by a cattle shed on the west and a stable on the east. All six buildings are uniformly pantiled and the brickwork of the sheds and stable reflect the farmhouse which appears to have been rebuilt or refaced in red brick at the same time – changing its name from Wellands Farm as a result. The complex illustrates the sophisticated, semi-industrial nature of Victorian High Farming and is accordingly of considerable historic interest. While most of the internal fixtures and fittings were lost during the 20th century several rare features survive including the extensive remains of machinery in the barn’s milling loft and the original louvers of the cattle shed (S7).