Manor Farm is a vernacular building, put up by men who had done the same job many times before and knew just what they were doing. It is mainly late Elizabethan and, apart from minor additions, has not been altered since.

South Norfolk was then more thickly populated and wooded than today; Pulham was a thriving market town and there is no sign here that oak was in short supply. The yeoman farmer whose home it was, added to his income with a bit of weaving – Pulham work, a furnishing fabric, was well-known. To judge by his house, he was quite comfortably off.

In the first half of the twentieth century a good living was more difficult to come by for a small farmer. Manor Farm decayed, and its vulnerable thatch and plaster disintegrated.

The lavish oak partitions and moulded beams were nearly sold as antiques. But in 1948 it was recognised for what it was and rescued in the nick of time by Mr and Mrs Dance of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, who repaired it to the highest of William Morris’s standards, and who later bequeathed Methwold Old Vicarage to the SPAB (now leased to us to be enjoyed as a Landmark).

We continue to maintain the building with a light touch that helps keep traditional craft skills alive; in 2006, much of the roof was rethatched with longstraw, once a material in common use but now rarely used.

View our history sheet for this Landmark

Sleeps: 8