"Farm building" redirects here. For farm living quarters, seefarmhouse.
"Byre" redirects here. For the Spanish YouTuber, seeByre (YouTuber).
Timber framed with siding of vertical boards was typical in early New England. The traditional color is the result of iron oxide stain applied to protect the wood from UV damage.TheTexas Technological College Dairy Barn inLubbock, Texas, U.S., was used as a teaching facility until 1967.Russian women using a hand poweredwinnowing machine in a threshing barn. Note the board across the doorway to prevent grain from spilling out of the barn, this is the origin of the term threshold.[1] Painting from 1894 byKlavdy Lebedev titled the floor or the threshing floor (Гумно).Grange Barn,Coggeshall, England, originally part of the Cistercian monastery of Coggeshall. Dendrochronologically dated from 1237 to 1269, it was restored in the 1980s by the Coggeshall Grange Barn Trust, Braintree District Council and Essex County Council.A bridge barn in Switzerland. The bridge (rather than a ramp) in this case also shelters animals.Starke Round Barn in Red Cloud, Nebraska, the largest freestanding barn in the United States.
Abarn is an agricultural building usually onfarms and used for various purposes. InNorth America, a barn refers to structures that houselivestock, includingcattle andhorses, as well as equipment andfodder, and often grain.[2] As a result, the term barn is often qualified e.g. tobacco barn, dairy barn, cow house, sheep barn, potato barn. In theBritish Isles and in Europe, the term barn is restricted mainly to storage structures forunthreshed cereals andfodder, the termsbyre orshippon being applied tocow shelters, whereas horses are kept in buildings known asstables.[2][3] In mainland Europe, however, barns were often part of integrated structures known asbyre-dwellings (orhousebarns in US literature). In addition, barns may be used for equipment storage, as a covered workplace, and for activities such asthreshing.
The wordbarn comes from theOld Englishbere, for barley (or grain in general), andaern, for a storage place—thus, a storehouse for barley.[4] The wordbere-ern, also spelledbern andbearn, is attested to at least sixty times inhomilies and otherOld English prose.[5] The related wordsbere-tun andbere-flor both meantthreshing floor.Bere-tun also meantgranary; the literal translation ofbere-tun is "grain enclosure". While the only literary attestation ofbere-hus (also granary) comes from theDialogi ofGregory the Great, there are four known mentions ofbere-tun and two ofbere-flor.A Thesaurus of Old English listsbere-ærn andmelu-hudern ("meal-store house") as synonyms for barn.[5][6][7]
The modern barn largely developed from the threeaisled medieval barn, commonly known astithe barn or monastic barn. This, in turn, originated in a 12th-century building tradition, also applied inhalls and ecclesiastical buildings. In the 15th century several thousands of these huge barns were to be found in Western Europe. In the course of time, its construction method was adopted by normal farms and it gradually spread to simpler buildings and other rural areas. As a rule, the aisled barn had large entrance doors and a passage corridor for loaded wagons. The storage floors between the central posts or in the aisles were known asbays or mows (from Middle Frenchmoye).[8]
The main types were large barns with sideway passages, compact barns with a central entrance and smaller barns with a transverse passage. The latter also spread to Eastern Europe. Whenever stone walls were applied, the aisledtimber frame often gave way to single-naved buildings. A special type werebyre-dwellings, which included living quarters, byres and stables, such as theFrisian farmhouse orGulf house and theBlack Forest house. Not all, however, evolved from the medieval barn. Other types descended from the prehistoriclonghouse or other building traditions. One of the latter was theLow German (hall) house, in which the harvest was stored in the attic.[9] In many cases, the New World colonial barn evolved from the Low German house, which was transformed to a real barn by first generation colonists from the Netherlands and Germany.[10]
In theYorkshire Dales, England, barns, known locally as cowhouses were built from double stone walls with truffs or throughstones acting as wall ties.[11]In the U.S., older barns were built fromtimbers hewn from trees on the farm and built as alog crib barn ortimber frame, although stone barns were sometimes built in areas where stone was a cheaper building material. In the mid to late 19th century in the U.S. barn framing methods began to shift away from traditional timber framing to "truss framed" or "plank framed" buildings. Truss or plank framed barns reduced the number of timbers instead using dimensional lumber for the rafters, joists, and sometimes the trusses.[12] The joints began to become bolted or nailed instead of being mortised and tenoned. The inventor and patentee of the Jennings Barn claimed his design used less lumber, less work, less time, and less cost to build and were durable and provided more room for hay storage.[13] Mechanization on the farm, better transportation infrastructure, and new technology like a hay fork mounted on a track contributed to a need for larger, more open barns, sawmills using steam power could produce smaller pieces of lumber affordably, and machine cut nails were much less expensive than hand-made (wrought) nails.Concrete block began to be used for barns in the early 20th century in the U.S.[14]
Modern barns are more typically steel buildings. From about 1900 to 1940, many largedairy barns were built in northern USA. These commonly havegambrel or hip roofs to maximize the size of the hayloft above the dairy roof, and have become associated in the popular image of adairy farm. The barns that were common to thewheatbelt held large numbers of pulling horses such asClydesdales orPercherons. These large wooden barns, especially when filled withhay, could make spectacular fires that were usually total losses for the farmers. With the advent of balers it became possible to store hay andstraw outdoors in stacks surrounded by a plowed fireguard. Many barns in the northern United States are paintedbarn red with a white trim. One possible reason for this is thatferric oxide, which is used to create red paint, was the cheapest and most readily available chemical for farmers inNew England and nearby areas. Another possible reason is that ferric oxide acts a preservative[15] and so painting a barn with it would help to protect the structure. The custom of painting barns in red with white trim is widely spread inScandinavia. Especially inSweden theFalu red with white trims is the traditional colouring of most wooden buildings.
With the popularity of tractors followingWorld War II many barns were taken down or replaced with modernQuonset huts made ofplywood orgalvanized steel. Beef ranches and dairies began building smaller loftless barns often of Quonset huts or of steel walls on a treated wood frame (old telephone or power poles). By the 1960s it was found that cattle receive sufficient shelter from trees or wind fences (usually wooden slabs 20% open).
Gallery of barns with different wall building materials
Half-timbered barn with brick infill.Uetersen, Germany. This barn's proportions resemble aLow German house.
Half-timbered with wattle-work walls for ventilation. Stryd Lydan Barn, originally at Llannerch Banna, Flintshire, North Wales. Re-erected at the St Fagans National History Museum,Cardiff, Wales in 1951.
Wattle work walls in a sheep barn inRuurlo, Netherlands.
Half-timbered barn walls with stone infill.Rödinghausen, Germany.
A rare half-timbered barn with board infill in Syke,Lower Saxony, Germany.
Grange barn,Coggeshall, England. This is astudded barn so the wall sheathing must be applied horizontally and covered with a siding material, in this case clapboards (weatherboards).
A type of barn inMetylovice, Czech Republic with stone piers and an infill of horizontal timbers.
Board-on-board siding and half timber-framed barn inOlsztynek, northPoland
Timber framed with the sheathing covered in clapboards.New Hampshire, U.S.A.
Rare walls of boards and thatch.Drenthe, Netherlands
Gable end of a brick barn with ventilation holes built into the brickwork.
19th-century fieldstone barn near Rockwood, Ontario, Canada.
Stone barns are common in parts of the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, France, and some Mediterranean countries. The projecting stones (which are a type of wall tie) are a style in the Yorkshire Dales, England.
Abidiah Taylor Barn Chester County, Pennsylvania. Part of the Taylor-Cope Historic District. Built in either 1724 (date stone) or 1744 (wooden beam investigation), it is one of the oldest extant barns in the United States. Field stone walls.
The combination of brick quoins with flint walls is common in (mostly older) buildings in this area of the Chilterns, Oxfordshire, England.
A rare wall material isCob which is similar to adobe.Devon, England.
Round log barn in the skansen (open-air museum) inSanok, Poland
Thehay track developed in the early 19th century, here showing how thehay hood (roof extension) covers the track. The gable wall of this barn is missing.
In older style North American barns, the upper area was used to storehay and sometimes grain. This is called the mow (rhymes with cow) or thehayloft. A large door at the top of the ends of the barn could be opened up so that hay could be put in the loft. The hay was hoisted into the barn by a system containingpulleys and a trolley that ran along a track attached to the top ridge of the barn.Trap doors in the floor allowed animal feed to be dropped into themangers for the animals.
InNew England it is common to find barns attached to the main farmhouse (connected farm architecture), allowing for chores to be done while sheltering the worker from the weather.
In the middle of the twentieth century the large broad roof of barns were sometimes painted with slogans in the United States. Most common of these were the 900 barns painted with ads forRock City.
In the past barns were often used for communal gatherings, such asbarn dances.
A barn in southernOntario, CanadaA barn of the Uster castle in the city ofUster,SwitzerlandThis barn inThuringia, Germany has twooutshots forming the recess to the middle barn doors.
A farm may have buildings of varying shapes and sizes used to shelter large and small animals and other uses. The enclosed pens used to shelter large animals are calledstalls and may be located in the cellar or on the main level depending in the type of barn. Other common areas, or features, of an American barn include:
a milkhouse for dairy barns; an attached structure where the milk is collected and stored prior to shipment
a grain (soy, corn, etc.) bin for dairy barns, found in the mow and usually made of wood with a chute to the ground floor providing access to the grain, making it easier to feed the cows.
modern barns often contain an indoor corral with a squeeze chute for providingveterinary treatment to sick animals.
In North Yorkshire cowhouses would have a muck hole (muck’ole in the local dialect) to allow manure to be deposited outside the barn without the cowhand leaving the building.[11]
In North Yorkshire a cowhouse would have a small door or forking hole (forking’ole in the local dialect) high up on the wall to enable fodder to be 'forked' into the baux or baulks (hayloft).[11]
Some English barns would have agin gang, a semi-circular extension added to house ahorse engine.
The physics term "barn", which is a subatomic unit of area, 10−28 m2, came from experiments with uranium nuclei during World War II, wherein they were described colloquially as "big as a barn", with the measurement officially adopted to maintain security around nuclear weapons research.
"He couldn't hit the broad side of a barn" is a popular expression for a person having poor aim when throwing an object or when shooting at something.
To "lock the barn door after the horse has bolted" implies that one has solved aproblem too late to prevent it.
"Were you born/raised in a barn?" is an accusation used differently in various parts of the English-speaking world, but most commonly as a reprimand when someone exhibits poor manners by either using ill-mannered language (particularly if related tomanure), or leaving doors open.
"Your barn door is open" is used as aeuphemism to remind someone to zip the fly of theirtrousers.
To "barnstorm" is to travel quickly around a large area making frequent public appearances.
Barns have been classified by theirfunction, structure, location, or other features. Sometimes the same building falls into multiple categories.
Apple barn or fruit barn – for the storage of fruit crops
Bank barn – A multilevel building built into a banking so the upper floor is accessible to a wagon, sometimes accessed by a bridge or ramp.
Bastle house – a defensive structure to guard against raiders with accommodation on the lower floor for livestock.
Bridge barn or covered bridge barn – general terms for barns accessed by a bridge rather than a ramp.
Boô – A sheep-barn and dwelling in the Netherlands, seasonal or sometimes year round.
Pennsylvania barn (U.S.) of which there are sub-categories such asstandard andsweitzer types. Also known asforebay orporch barns.
Cantilever barn – a type of logcrib barn with cantilevered upper floors which developed in Appalachia (U.S.A.)
Combination barn – found throughout England, especially in areas ofpastoral farming and the standard barn type in America. This general term means the barns were used for both crop storage and as a byre to house animals.[16]
Crib barn – Horizontal log structures with up to four cribs (assemblies of crossing timbers) found primarily in the southern U.S.A.
Drying barns for drying crops in Finland and Sweden are calledriihi andria, respectively.
New World Dutch Barn – A barn type in the U.S. Also seeDutch barn (U.K.) in Other farm buildings section below.
Field barn – An outbuilding located in a field further afield than the main cluster of buildings that constitute a farmstead
New England barn – a common style of barn found in rural New England and in the U.S.
English barn (U.S.), also called a Yankee or Connecticut barn – A widespread barn type in the U.S.
Granary – to store grain after it is threshed, some barns contain a room called a granary, some barns like arice barn blur the line between a barn and granary.
Gothic arch barn, has profile shaped as a Gothic arch, which became feasible to be formed by laminated members
Housebarn, also called abyre-dwelling – A combined living space and barn, relatively common in old Europe but rare in North America. Also,longhouses were housebarns.
Pole barn – a simple structure that consists of poles embedded in the ground to support a roof, with or without exterior walls. The pole barn lacks a conventional foundation, thus greatly reducing construction costs. Traditionally used to house livestock, hay or equipment.
Potato barn orpotato house– A semi-subterranean or two story building for storage of potatoes or sweet potatoes.
Prairie barn – A general term for barns in the Western U.S.
Tithe barn – a type of barn used in much of northern Europe in the Middle Ages for storing the tithes—a tenth of the farm's produce which had to be given to the church
Threshing barn – built with athreshing floor for the processing and storage ofcereals, to keep them in dry conditions. Characterised by large doubledoors in the centre of one side, a smaller one on the other, and storage for cerealharvest or unprocessed on either side. In England the grain was beaten from the crop by flails and then separated from the husks by winnowing between these doors. The design of these typically remained unchanged between the 12th and 19th centuries. The large doors allow for a horse wagon to be driven through; the smaller ones allow for the sorting of sheep and other stock in the spring and summer.[17]
Dutch barn (U.K.): an open sided structure for hay storage. The type with a movable roof is called ahay barrack in the U.S or ahooiberg (kapberg) in the Netherlands.
Acorn crib a horizontal slatted structure built to allow airflow to dry corn (maize)
Agranary orhórreo: a storage space forthreshed grains, sometimes within a barn or as a separate building.
Linhay (linny, linney, linnies): A shed, often with alean-to roof but may be acircular linhay to store hay on the first floor with either cattle on the ground floor (cattle linhay), or farm machinery (cart linhay). Characterised by an open front with regularly spaced posts or pillars.
Milk room or milk house: to store milk.
Oast houses: an outbuilding used for dryinghops as part of the brewing process.
Shelter sheds: open-fronted structures for stock
Shippon: a shed which housesoxen andcattle. Hasfodder storage above, regularly spaced doors on the yard side, a pitching door or window on the first floor.
Old farm buildings of the countryside contribute to the landscape, and help define the history of the location, i.e. how farming took place in the past, and how the area has been settled throughout the ages. They also can show the agricultural methods, building materials, and skills that were used. Most were built with materials reflecting the local geology of the area. Building methods include earth walling andthatching.
Buildings in stone and brick, roofed with tile or slate, increasingly replaced buildings in clay, timber and thatch from the later 18th century. Metal roofs started to be used from the 1850s. The arrival of canals and railways brought about transportation of building materials over greater distances.
Clues determining their age and historical use can be found from old maps, sale documents, estate plans, and from a visual inspection of the building itself, noting (for example) reused timbers, former floors, partitions, doors and windows.
The arrangement of the buildings within the farmstead can also yield valuable information on the historical farm usage and landscape value. Linear farmsteads were typical of small farms, where there was an advantage to having cattle and fodder within one building, due to the colder climate. Dispersed clusters of unplanned groups were more widespread. Loose courtyard plans built around a yard were associated with bigger farms, whereas carefully laid out courtyard plans designed to minimize waste and labour were built in the latter part of the 18th century.[18][19]
The barns are typically the oldest and biggest buildings to be found on the farm. Many barns were converted into cow houses and fodder processing and storage buildings after the 1880s. Many barns hadowl holes to allow for access by barn owls, encouraged to aid vermin control.
Thestable is typically the second-oldest building type on the farm. They were well built and placed near the house due to the value that thehorses had asdraught animals
Modern granaries were built from the 18th century. Complete granary interiors, with plastered walls and wooden partitioning to grain bins, are very rare.
Longhouses are an ancient building where people and animals used the same entrance. These can still be seen, for example, in North Germany, where theLow Saxon house occurs.
Few interiors of the 19th century cow houses have survived unaltered due to dairy-hygiene regulations in many countries.
Old farm buildings may show the following signs of deterioration: rotting in timber-framed constructions due to damp, cracks in the masonry from movement of the walls, e.g. ground movement, roofing problems (e.g. outward thrust of it, deterioration ofpurlins andgable ends),foundation problems, penetration of tree roots;lime mortar being washed away due to inadequate weather-protection. Walls made ofcob, earth mortars or walls with rubble cores are all highly vulnerable to water penetration, and replacement or covering of breathable materials with cement or damp-proofing materials may trap moisture within the walls.[20][21]
In England andWales some of these historical buildings have been given "listed building" status, which provides them some degree ofarchaeological protection.
Barns and silo inNewmarket,Ontario, Canada. These structures were torn down in March 2009.
TraditionalSasak rice barn in village of Sade,Lombok, Indonesia.
In Germany, due to the risk of fire, some hay barns were located in areas apart from houses in the inner town or village. These areas were called a Scheunenviertel, which translates as "barn quarter", from "Scheune", the German word for barn.[22] This barn quarter is inSteinhude, Germany
^Bosworth, J..A Dictionary of the Anglo-Saxon Language.... London: Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1838. 50. Print.
^Malcolm Kirk,The Barn. Silent Spaces, London 1994; Graham Hughes,Barns of Rural Britain, London 1985; Walter Horn, 'On the Origins of the Medieval Bay System', in:Journal of the Society of Architectural Historians 17 (1958), nr. 2, p. 2-23.
^Jeremy Lake,Historic Farm Buildings. An Introduction and Guide, London 1989; Eric Sloane,An Age of Barns. An Illustrated Review of Classic Barn Styles and Construction, New York 1967, 4th ed. 2005; Jean-René Trochet,Maisons paysannes en France et leur environnement, XVe-XXe siècles, Paris 2007.
^John Fitchen,The New World Dutch Barn. A Study of its Characteristics, its Structural System, and its Probable Erectional Procedures, Syracuse N.Y. 1968.
^abcbawp (2017-08-16)."Naming the parts of the cowhouse".Every Barn Tells a Story: Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority.Archived from the original on 2020-09-30. Retrieved2021-02-09.
^Fink, Daniel. Barns of the Genesee country, 1790–1915: including an account of settlement and changes in agricultural practices. Geneseo, N.Y.: J. Brunner, 1987. Print. 416.
^Fink, Daniel. Barns of the Genesee country, 1790–1915: including an account of settlement and changes in agricultural practices. Geneseo, N.Y.: J. Brunner, 1987. Print.
^Cattelan, Maurizio.Von Mäusen und Menschen: 4. Berlin Biennale für zeitgenössische Kunst = Of mice and men : 4th Berlin Biennial for Contemporary Art. Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, 2006. 89. Print.
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![In Germany, due to the risk of fire, some hay barns were located in areas apart from houses in the inner town or village. These areas were called a Scheunenviertel, which translates as "barn quarter", from "Scheune", the German word for barn.[22] This barn quarter is in Steinhude, Germany](/mt/?noimg=&dark=on&url=http%3a%2f%2fen.wikipedia.org%2fwiki%2fFile%3aSteinhude_Scheunenviertel_Panorama.jpg)
