The Guesten Hall at Abbey Farm is a Grade II listed building in the East Suffolk local planning authority area, England. First listed on 24 July 1996. Monastic guest house, college refectory, recital hall. 1 related planning application.
The Guesten Hall at Abbey Farm
- WRENN ID
- tattered-rampart-fen
- Grade
- II
- Local Planning Authority
- East Suffolk
- Constituency
- Suffolk Coastal MP: Jenny Riddell-Carpenter (Lab)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 24 July 1996
- Type
- Monastic guest house, college refectory, recital hall
- Address
- The Guesten Hall at Abbey Farm, Abbey Road, Leiston
- OS grid reference
- TM 444 642
- Coordinates
- 52.22235, 1.57707
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Guesten Hall at Abbey Farm is a building that likely served as a monastic guest house, originally constructed in the late 14th or early 15th century. It was rebuilt between 1986 and 1993 by John Weller, with Alde Contracts as the builders, reusing the surviving medieval walling. The structure is made of flint with stone and brick dressings, along with some weatherboarding, and features a tiled roof with a brick ridge stack. It has two storeys and includes 20th-century windows and doors. The right side of the front wall retains medieval elements up to the first floor and has shallow buttresses on the interior. The rear wall showcases medieval walling on the ground floor to the right and extends to full height on the left. Notable openings include a fine doorway to the first floor, which has a chamfered brick two-centred arch. The Guesten Hall, along with the adjacent Barn at Abbey Farm, is part of a group that includes Leiston Abbey House, also known as the Retreat House, and the ruins of Leiston Abbey, which is under the guardianship of English Heritage.
Local climate
The Guesten Hall at Abbey Farm sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 720 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 84% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 61% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 12 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 89% of listed buildings. Of these, 7 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
Sign in or create a free account to unlock:
- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- Related listed building consents — 1 application
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings