Farmstead record GRT 035 - Farmstead: Groton Place

Groton Place is a farmstead visible on the 1st Ed Os map. The farmstead is laid out in a regular courtyard multi yard plan with E-plan and U-plan elements with additional detached buildings. The farmhouse is attached to the agricultural range. The farmstead sits alongside a public road in a village location. There has been a partial loss of working buidlings with the remaining converted for residential use. (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.

In the 19th century, Groton Place had two large courtyard plan farmyards to the SE of the house, separated by a driveway. The garage/store for conversion was part of the farmyard on the N side of the driveway and was partly converted into an annexe in 1992. The large barn to the SE and other outbuildings including the coach house, stable yard and farmyard were connverted to residential use in the 1980s. The building is 'L' shaped in plan and dates from the late 18th/early 19th century although much altered. It forms the SE end of a range aligned NW/SE. The position of the building, with the entrance facing away from the former farmyard or 'homestead' but easily accessible from the drive, suggests that it was a fromer coah house. The builidng had a loft above which was probably a hay loft serving the attaches stables. The building was originally timber framed on a red brick plinth, clad in black horizontal boards with a slate roof, to create a borarded gable with window. This alteration was carried out to increase the headroom in the loft when the annexe was created. The garage/store has three bays but the NE bay is only half the length of the other two bays. The NE bays retain the original white brick floor (S5).