Farmstead record STS 033 - Farmstead: Barnfield

Barnfield, Stanstead. 17th century farmstead and 19th century farmhouse. Loose courtyard two-sided 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 hamlet (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 Reverend John Plampin acquired land on the west side of Upper Street in 1800 and that this comprised a cottage, a barn and two parcels of land which may be equated with the ‘house’ (147), ‘barn’ (146), and two arable fields (131 and 145) of the 1841 apportionment. It would appear that a second barn was erected in the yard on the west side of Upper Street between 1820 and 1827. This coincided with the removal of a barn from the yard of the parsonage on the east side of Upper Street between the same dates. The single-span two-storey cottage, which has the external form of a two-cell lobby-entry house of late seventeenth or early eighteenth century date, was substantially enlarged to the rear with the construction of a parallel range of greater span and height than its host. The cottage was subsequently known as Kia Lama before acquiring its present name of Barnfield by the mid-1930s. The barn that stood on the south side of the yard is absent by 1924. The former threshing barn was built in the early nineteenth century (c.1820s) re-using components from an earlier structure. The timber-framed barn was constructed in three bays and possessed a central threshing bay which was entered from the east. The barn was also provided with a central porch to the west from the outset. A two-bay stable range was built at the northern end of the barn at a date shortly after the initial construction phase and a fourth bay was added at the southern end of the barn by the end of the 1830s. Late nineteenth and twentieth century alterations to the barn and the stable range included the blocking of the main entrance to the barn (partly with a pair of windows), the replacement of the roof structure and roof covering of the rear porch, the construction of a pair of open-sided lean-to additions, the re-construction of the gable end wall of the fourth bay (with the incorporation of openings), the creation of a doorway through the primary-braced north wall of the barn, the removal of a joist and the insertion of a ladder stair to the hay-loft, the creation of door openings in the rear wall of the stable range, and the insertion of both a fixed light window and a re-used three-light leaded window (with a central iron casement) in the rear wall of the barn (S7).