Green Farm

Green Farm is an early 18th-century farmhouse situated at the centre of the nucleated village of Little Ellingham. Built around 1730, it is a timber-framed structure with roughcast clay lump and wattle and daub infill beneath a gabled, pantiled roof. The north gable end and north-east cross wing are constructed of Fletton brick laid in Flemish bond. A 20th-century east outshut of composition bricks with a corrugated iron roof, and a post-war lean-to outshut of single storey, extend the building further.

The house is organised as a three-cell structure of two storeys with a staircase tower and outshuts. The principal elevation faces west and contains three two-light cross casement windows to each floor, with a four-panelled front door offset to the south. Ridge and external gable stacks are positioned off-centre to the north and south, with a further external stack against the east gable of the north-east cross wing. The north gable end has an entrance with a four-panelled door with overlight and a small attic window. The east elevation features a wide catslide roof over the 18th-century outshut, through which the staircase tower rises. A timber cellar access door at the south end of the east elevation is preserved, with a casement window above it.

The interior comprises three principal living rooms connected by a corridor inserted during late 19th-century modernisation. The transverse beams of each room pass through the studwork partition creating the corridor, with external access via a north door. The north room contains a chamfered beam with large tongue stops and a 1930s tiled fireplace, alongside a cupboard with a planked door. The centre dining room has a chamfered beam with tongue stops and an elaborate chimney piece of variegated marble with a cast-iron insert, with a four-panelled front door in the west wall and an 18th-century two-panelled door in the late 19th-century east partition. The south room features a chamfered beam and a hatch opening into a storeroom. East of the corridor, the former dairy retains its brick floor and brick shelving to north, east and west walls finished with pamments, with visible studwork in the west wall and a blocked doorway that formerly connected to the north living room of the west range, originally the kitchen. The late 19th-century kitchen to the east has a tall opening for a kitchen range with a cast-iron bread oven to the left. The pantry, located in the 18th-century outshut, retains visible studwork and a horizontal sliding sash window overlooking the corridor. The 1949 lean-to to the east is of exposed blockwork construction.

A closed-well staircase rises to a landing by the chimney stack, with a cupboard at the head featuring a raised and fielded two-panel door on plain butterfly hinges. The first floor plan mirrors the ground floor arrangement, with the south room subdivided, the smaller western room opening into the central room. Outer walls display jowled posts and chamfered tie beams; the north bedroom beam has small tongue stops. North, south and east walls contain exposed studwork and straight braces. Fireplaces in the east room above the dairy and central room contain arched register grates. Most doors date to the early 18th century with two panels and HL hinges, except for the planked door with strap hinges serving the bathroom south of the corridor.

A three-plank door on HL hinges opens onto a winder staircase rising to the attic by the east side of the main stack. The attic rooms also have three-plank doors and wide early 18th-century floorboards. The roof remains intact, comprising principal and common rafters with a single tier of staggered butt purlins and collars.

In 1884, James Huggins purchased the farm and undertook significant modernisation and extension to both house and farm buildings. Work to the house included reconstructing the north gable end, raising the dairy at the north end of the east elevation to two storeys, and adding a new single storey kitchen. Farm buildings to the north date to the second half of the 19th century and differ from those shown on the 1840 Tithe Map. A lean-to outshut was added to the east elevation in 1949, and external roughcast was renewed in the 1970s. The farm has remained in the family for three generations. The building is a substantially intact example of early 18th-century timber-framed vernacular construction, with later alterations demonstrating characteristic 19th-century modernisation practices and illustrating the evolution from medieval hall house to 19th-century domestic planning.