Elm Farm, East Bergholt

Elm Farm is a former hall house built in the 15th or 16th century and converted to a lobby-entrance house in the 17th century.

The farmhouse is constructed with a rendered timber frame, except for the south-east gable wall which has been rebuilt in brick and clad with weatherboard. The rear corridor and attached former dairy are of rendered brick, with a tile-covered roof. The building is two storeys with a gabled roof to the south-east and half-hipped to the north-west, topped by a substantial off-centre brick stack. The south-east gable end is gabled and the north-west end is half-hipped. The dairy, attached to the south-east, is one storey with an attic and a gabled roof with tile covering and dormers.

The original three-bay medieval hall house plan remains legible, with the service end to the north-west and the high end to the south-east, each having a chamber at first floor. The hall was ceiled over and a stack was inserted into the cross passage in the 17th century, creating a lobby-entrance arrangement. The current entrance hall marks the position of the cross passage.

The façade has a six-panelled entrance door with a slight hood and pairs of 19th-century two-paned sash windows at ground and first floors. To the rear, the first-floor sash windows are 19th century, while those lighting the corridor and the refurbished dairy are 20th-century casements.

Inside, the substantial pegged and jointed timber wall and cross frames of the original hall house and 17th-century floor frames are visible. The ground floor features a wide central hall, broken through at the rear to allow access to a corridor (Geary's corridor), with the midrail of the rear wall frame forming a lintel to the opening. An inglenook fireplace is partly enclosed with a mantelpiece and flanking 19th-century cupboards. The cross frames on either side of the hall are original and continue through to the crown-post roof above. The two axial bridging beams are chamfered and stopped with mortice and tenon jointed joists.

The room to the south-east, the former parlour, is accessed through a late-18th or early-19th-century two-panel door. This room was gentrified in the early 19th century and contains a simple fireplace and a recessed Suffolk cupboard of that period. Late-20th-century French windows open onto the rear garden. The rebuilt south-east gable wall has been opened to allow access to an incorporated outshot now serving as a study. The room to the left of the entrance hall, accessed through a late-18th or early-19th-century two-panel door, was the service end where the pantry and buttery would have been located. The rear wall frame and original north-east external cross frame retain wall posts, midrails, studs and some wattle and daub panels. The converted outshots to the north have 20th-century fixtures and fittings. The dairy has been converted into a kitchen and retains some timber framing on the rear elevation, with a 20th-century back stair leading to the upper floor.

The main 20th-century stairs lead from the entrance hall to the first floor, where three slightly cambered tie beams are present. The principal bedroom at the south-east end, formerly the solar, has been subdivided to enable an additional bathroom. On the front wall frame, a jowled wall post is strapped to the tie beam and wall plate. The wall plate of the rear wall frame is exposed in the bathroom. An 18th-century two-panelled door with HL hinges leads from the bedroom to the upper landing, where wide 17th-century floor boards, the stack and the cross frame shared with the entrance hall are visible. From the landing there is access to a smaller front bedroom and a corridor leading to a bathroom and the former chamber over the service end. Wall and cross framing is exposed at the front, north-west end and rear.

Access to the attic rooms of the dairy is from the bathroom next to the principal bedroom; all fixtures and fittings are 20th century. Some elements of the clasped purlin roof of the dairy have been retained, though much was replaced in the 20th century. Above the historic hall house, the original crown post truss remains largely intact, although it has been remodelled at the south-east gable end. The crown posts are plain in section with slender bracing and simple stop chamfers, and there is some evidence of blackened timbers. Some of the common rafters have been replaced and side purlins have been introduced at a later date.