Farmstead record WLG 060 - Farmstead: Clarke's Farm

Clarke's Farm is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a dispersed plan with the farmhouse detached and set away from the yard. The farmstead sits alongside a private track in an isolated location. This farmstead has been completely lost. (S1-4)

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 cropmarks of the medieval/post medieval Clarke’s Farm and associated features can be seen to the south-west of Great Welnetham on aerial photographs taken in 2011. The cropmarks of the farm are centred on TL 8700 5890 though they are indistinct because of poor crop growth and a modern field boundary runs through them. Cropmarks of a lane that ran south-east from the farm to join with those of a broad droveway that once linked Great Welnetham with Broad Green are also visible. These cropmarks and those of associated field boundaries are all of features depicted on the 1885 Ordnance Survey map. Approximately 125m to the northeast of the farm at TL 8713 5898 are further cropmarks of a possible toft and croft and an additional field boundary. It is not clear what connection this site had to Clarkes’s Farm but unlike this farm it had gone by the late 19th century, though something may be depicted at that location on the early 19th century map (S5).