Hill Top Farmhouse

Hill Top Farmhouse is a house, originally a farmhouse, dating back to the 15th century, with alterations around 1621 (a date carved into the building). It is an example of a three-cell open hall house, a type occasionally found in north-east Suffolk and rare elsewhere in the county, featuring a queen-post roof. The house is single-storey with attics. It has a timber frame and plaster, with some surviving 18th-century rope-pattern pargetting. The thatched roof has gabled dormers; one dormer has a carved gable tie-beam inscribed “1621.H.H.:H.H.1621”, believed to mark the date of the alterations. The chimneys are of red brick; the axial and north gable stacks are from the 17th century, while the southern stack with ovens dates to around 1800. Most windows are small-pane casements from the 19th century, though one window retains 17th-century ovolo-moulding and another is complete but blocked. The entrance has a boarded door with a 20th-century gabled open porch on posts.

The original core of the house consists of a two-bay open hall, heavily discolored by smoke, with widely spaced arch-braced studwork. Each closed truss has a pair of queen-posts supporting a collar, upon which large square-set purlins are lodged and supported by arch-braces. Open trusses have a cambered collar above jowled queen-posts; large arch-braces, the bottoms of the posts, and the rest of the truss were removed in the 17th century. The roof also includes a ridge-piece, a rare feature usually only found in north-east Suffolk. An original service cell remains, with a lodged upper floor. Around 1621, a further cell was added to each end of the building, featuring clasped purlin roofs, and an inserted floor was added to the hall with ovolo-moulded joists. An inserted chimney, backing onto the cross-passage, may be earlier in origin. A chamber ceiling has 17th-century vine-scroll plasterwork along the central beam. The building was formerly known as Harrow Farmhouse.