Old Hall Farm - Church Road.

It is thought that Old Hall Farm stands on the site of, or at least close to, what was Hunt's Manor, the Lordship of which by 1315 had become owned by Dunmowe Priory in Essex. Analysis of the timber framing suggests that the central portion of the house was originally an open hall dating from the 1400s into which an upper floor was inserted in Tudor times, and to which a gabled cross wing facing the road was added in the 17th century. The two further gables on the south front are thought to be late 17th century additions. All this indicates that the property was owned and probably occupied over the period by some wealthy families but it seems that by the eighteenth century, like many other farms, the owners of the property were absentee landlords.

However the Manorial Court records refer to a contract in 1801 under which the Rev. Philip Hopson Stannard purchased from Miss Bateman of Beccles a house and 53 acres, and in correspondence he recorded that he had bought a manor house and farm at Tasburgh for himself and his widowed mother, most likely Old Hall Farm because he was identified as the owner on the 1818 Enclosure Award map. By then, through a number of other purchases, he had become the largest landowner in Tasburgh, and even if he didn't actually farm the land himself, he certainly lived in the village. The Rev. Stannard, who had no connection to the church in Tasburgh apart from being a church warden, was born at Mulbarton Hall, the son of a wealthy Norwich cloth merchant, and was ordained as a deacon at Norwich Cathedral before briefly serving as a curate at Stoke Holy Cross. Despite his mother dying in 1812, Philip continued to live in Tasburgh until 1837 when he sold his properties and moved to Long Statton. How long he actually lived at Old Hall Farm however is open to doubt because the Enclosure Award shows that he also owned Tasburgh House on the main road, which would have been a rather more suitable residence for a gentleman of that time. Indeed the early census returns show that from at least 1841, the house at Old Hall Farm had been divided into two or more dwellings for farm labourers or other poorer families.

The purchaser of the majority of the Rev. Stannard's land and properties was Alexander Campbell, a property investor living in Great Plumstead. He let Old Hall Farm to a farmer, William Betts, who certainly lived at Tasburgh House. He was still the tenant in 1871 but ten years later his eldest son, also William, had taken over the tenancy following his father's death in 1877. He also lived at Tasburgh House, with Old Hall Farm still occupied by farm workers, and that remained the case in 1891. What had changed by then was that Alexander Campbell had died in 1883 and Old Hall Farm had been acquired by Sir Charles Harvey as an addition to the Rainthorpe estate. However he didn't purchase all of the land that had been owned by Alexander Campbell, in particular Tasburgh House or any of the farmland between the main road and the track or loke running between Old Hall Farm and Tasburgh House.

As a result, under Rainthorpe's ownership Old Hall Farmhouse once again became home to the farming tenants, the first of which was the Dickerson family but Dennis Dickerson died in 1900 and the 1901 census refers to the head of the household being Ellen Dickerson, his 33 year old widow with six young children. The death of the tenant would almost certainly have resulted in the service of a year's notice to quit, and the next tenant was Robert William Curson. Kelly's Norfolk Directory of 1908 refers to him as a farmer at Old Hall farm but quite when that name was first applied to the property and whether before that it had simply been Hall Farm isn't known but it would probably have coincided with the change of name of Tasburgh Lodge to Tasburgh Hall by Mr Berney Ficklin in about 1890. 

 The 1911 census shows that living there with Mr Curson were his wife Emma, their 12 year old daughter Hilda plus a domestic servant and a farm labourer, James Larner, who had moved to Tasburgh with Mr Curson and from whom he was able to later buy the fields adjoining Glebe Cottage where he lived after his marriage. The Cursons also had a son, Frederick, who the 1939 register records as living at Lodge Farm on the main road. In 1929, when the Rainthorpe estate was auctioned off following the death of Sir Charles Harvey, Robert Curson as the sitting tenant was able to buy Old Hall farm but as he was y then 69 the transfer was taken in the name of his son. Following his father's death in 1940, Frederick Curson sold the farm to Metropolitan Railway Country Estates Ltd who let it to John Everson and his sons Russell and George, and they then bought it in 1949. It was the Eversons who provided the site of the village hall and playing field in 1952 as well as the extension to the churchyard. The contribution of both families to the life of the village is marked by the roads named in their honour.

The farm was then briefly owned by Ernest Pleasants but in 1958 David Addington arrived with his wife Silvia and family and they were also significant contributors to village life. For many years Mr. Addington was chairman of both the Parish Council and Tasburgh United Charities whilst Mrs. Addington was closely involved with the church and also did a great deal of research into the history of the village on which she wrote numerous articles. At some stage after 1929 the fields in front of Old Hall Farm had been added to the holding, and in 1973 Mr. Addington obtained planning consent for residential development on eleven acres of land off Church Road, forming Henry Preston Road and its associated side roads, as well as providing the village with the site for a new school.

  After Mr Addington died in 1990 the farm was sold in three lots. The The Hill Fort and adjoining field down to the village hall was bought by Stuart Read whose father,Peter, had built Pine Lodge at the bottom of Grove Lane hill in 1976. The other two lots comprising the house, farm buildings and 46 acres of land  opposite the village hall was purchased by Matthew Bradbury, son of Sir Malcolm Bradbury who before his death had owned The Firs on Low Road. He became financially stretched so the barn by the drive was sold off for conversion to a separate dwelling, the land was also disposed of and the house and adjoining paddocks were acquired by Gavin and Kerry Smith. He had been involved in property development in the Middle East and was able to carry out a major programme of restoration and modernisation before they moved in. The property however was already well known to Kerry because, as Kerry Riches, she had been brought up in the village, and her father Derek had worked on the farm for David Addington and lived in Old Hall Farm Bungalow, but in 2022 the house was sold again.