East Farm, Barnham, is an important archaeological site dating back to the Hoxnian Stage of the Lower Palaeolithic (about 400,000 years ago).

[4] The Domesday Book of 1086 records that Barnham housed 35 families, which meant it was a large village by the standards of the time.

[7] From 1808 to 1814, Barnham had a station in the shutter telegraph chain, which connected the Admiralty in London to its naval ships in the port of Great Yarmouth.

Barnham railway station on the Thetford to Bury St Edmunds line closed in 1960.

The site is known to have been operational as a nuclear store in September 1956, commanded from RAF Honington, 6 miles (9.7 km) to the south, but it is believed to have stopped in 1963, after the development of the Blue Steel missile programme.