Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

• State Historic Resource Inventory

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

This is a 1 1/2-story gable-entry bank barn with a gable roof whose ridge-line runs perpendicular to Little Meadow Road.  The main facade faces east toward the road and has a double sliding door on an exterior mounted overhead track on the extreme north corner. Over the sliding door is a sign which reads “Bittersweet Farm”.  The grade declines to the south, revealing a partial basement level. There is a pass-through door at the extreme south corner in the basement level of the main facade. Centered in the gable attic are two side-hinged hay doors, one above the other.  Above these two hay doors is a small, square window. 

On the south eave-side of the barn is a double pass-through door in the extreme east corner.  There is a triple window with trim to the west of this door, then continuing west across the facade is a very small opening of unknown purpose just beneath the eave, a pair of windows set low down on the facade, a single window which may have originally been a pass-through door with a transom above, and a large horizontal window at the far west corner. The grade continues to declines gradually. On the west gable-end of the barn is a triple group of one-over-one, double hung windows. There is a double sliding door with overhead exterior hardware west of center in the north eave-side of the barn.  The barn is clad in unpainted wood shingles with trim but there are traces of white paint over the sliding door and the eave boards are painted red on the east facade.  The gable roof appears to be clad in asphalt shingles.
 
The small structure was a corn crib.  Its gable roof is parallel to Little Meadow Road and its main gable-facade, which faces south, is composed of a pass-through door with a four-pane window, flanked by a horizontal four-pane window on either side.  The rear, north gable-facade has one small window on the west corner.  Otherwise there are no openings in any of the facades.  The structure is raised on piers so there is a small wooden, five-step stair leading to the front door.  The vertical siding is painted white with white trim and the gable roof appears to be clad in asphalt shingles.

Historical significance:

The oldest barns still found in the state are called the “English Barn,” “side-entry barn,” “eave entry,” or a 30 x 40. They are simple buildings with rectangular plan, pitched gable roof, and a door or doors located on one or both of the “eave” sides of the building based on the grain warehouses of the English colonists’ homeland.  The New England barn or gable front barn was the successor to the English barn and relies on a gable entry rather than an entry under the eaves. The gable front offers many practical advantages. Roofs drain off the side, rather than flooding the dooryard. Although it was seen by many as an improvement over the earlier side entry English Barn, the New England barn did not replace its predecessor but rather coexisted with it. It this case, both an eave entry and a gable entry are used.

Field Notes

According to assesor's field card, barn is 2700 sf, shed is 240 sf. One of the few remaining early 19th century farmsteads on this stretch of Little Meadow Rd. House dated by plaque, 1820. Both house and outbuildings appear extremely well preserved and are of outstanding historical significance. Barn probably dates to 1854. Second structure is a corn crib.

Use (Historic)

• agriculture

Use (Present)

• storage

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

• Garden
• Other

Environment features

• Residential
• Rural
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

This property is located to the north of the historic town center of Guilford, in a residential area.  This barns is on 4.5 acres that consists mostly of a house, a swimming pool, a corn crib, an a few other small structures.  The barn is set back approximately 175 feet west from Little Meadow Road.  Between the road and the barn is a garden.  The house which was built in 1820 and whose gable is perpendicular to the road is 35 feet away set back from the road.  The house is across the driveway from the garden so that it is not directly in front of the barn and it is a distance of approximately 95 feet away from the barn.  The swimming pool is behind the house.

Book 764, Page 950, Parcel No.086002, List No. 7727

Building Typology

• Corn Crib
• New England Bank

Materials

• Vertical Siding
• Wood Shingle

Structural System

• Wood Frame

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle

Roof type

• Gable

Approximate Dimensions

Barn: 2700 sq. ft., Corn crib: 240 sq. ft.

Date Compiled

03/08/2011

Compiled By

R. Rothbart & T. Levine, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Field notes and photographs by Ann Weeden date: 07/20/2009.

Town of Guilford Assessor’s Record: 
http://www.guilfordgis.com/gallery.htm
Parcel ID: 086002

Aerial Mapping:
Google Earth: 9/10/2010
http://maps.google.com
http://www.bing.com/maps accessed 03/08/2010.

Sexton, James, PhD, Survey Narrative of the Connecticut Barn, Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, Hamden, CT, 2005, http://www.connecticutbarns.org/history.

Visser, Thomas D., Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, University Press of New England, 1997.