Farmstead record TMP 008 - Farmstead: Chandos Farm

Chandos Farm, Thornham Parva. 19th century farmstead and 17th century farmhouse with converted buildings. Regular courtyard multi-yard plan formed by working agricultural buildings. The farmhouse is attached to the agricultural range. Partial loss (less than 50%) of the traditional farm buildings. Located within a village (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.

Chandos Farm lies 100 m north of St Mary’s church in Thornham Parva and appears to have been known as Grange Farm until its purchase during the late-18th century by the Duchess of Chandos and Lord Henniker’s Thornham Estate. At the time of the 1843 tithe survey it formed a substantial tenanted arable holding of 158 acres. The site contains a grade II-listed farmhouse of circa 1600 with an extensive complex of farm buildings to the north and west. Most of these buildings have been converted for domestic use in recent years and this report concerns only the range to the north which consists of a large timber-framed double threshing barn and an adjoining complex of cattle yards and shelter-sheds. The tithe map shows a barn of similar scale in much the same position but the present structures were built soon afterwards as part of a major refurbishment. Many of the previous barn’s timbers were probably re-used in its replacement, which contained two threshing floors entered by gabled porches on the north. The five shelter-sheds were uniformly pantiled with walls of fashionable flint-rubble dressed in red-brick, and the barn was provided with ‘two-tier’ cladding of clay daub above weatherboarding. With the exception of one wall of its western porch, which was preserved within an early-20th century shed that probably served as a grain store, the barn was reduced in height by approximately 0.6 m (2ft) in the mid-20th century. The roof was rebuilt at the same time and both its walls and roof are now clad chiefly in corrugated iron. It is accordingly unclear whether the barn was also pantiled initially to match the shelter-sheds or more steeply pitched for thatch. The easternmost shelter-shed has also been rebuilt in softwood, while some others have partly collapsed. Despite these depredations the group remains of historic interest as it illustrates the sophisticated and complex nature of the yard-based system of mixed animal husbandry known today as Victorian High Farming. It also reflects the status of the Thornham Estate (one of the largest and most important in Suffolk). Although reduced in height the barn remains an imposing building with a particularly well preserved original herringbone threshing floor of gault brick. The evidence of its ‘two-tier’ cladding is of special historic significance, illustrating a common appearance of local barns before tarred weatherboarding became ubiquitous during the second half of the 19th century (S7)