Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

n/a

Historic Significance

Architectural Description:

This is a 1 ½ story, three bay side- or eave-entry bank barn with a gable-roofed addition and a flat-roofed addition. The barn faces north with its ridge line running east-west, parallel to Baltic Road. The main entrance to the barn appears to be on the basement level of the north eave-facade. The north eave-facade has three evenly-spaced overhead doors on the basement level that appear to function as the main entry to the barn. There is a fixed six-pane window off-center in the east bay of the main floor. The center bay is blank. Just above the siding divide, in the west bay of the north eave-facade, there appears to a haymow door or at one time a window or door that was removed and boarded up.

The west gable-facade has a pass-through door on the main floor in the northern-most corner. Below the apex is a fixed single-pane window centered in the attic gable. The southern-most portion of the west gable-facade has a concrete-block gable-roof addition. The grade slopes from the south down to the north on the west gable-facade, exposing part of the foundation on the west facade and the entire basement level on the north gable-facade.

There is a shed-roofed addition off the south eave-facade, encompassing the length of the main barn. A flat-roofed addition projects south off the south eave-facade of the shed-roofed addition. The flat-roofed addition has groupings of one-over-one double-hung windows on the south and west facade’s with a pass-through door in the northern-most corner of the west facade. East of the barn structure is a poured concrete silo with a metal top.

Centered on the main floor of the east gable-facade is, what appears to be, an exterior sliding door below the girt line siding divide. Centered below the apex in the attic gable there appears to be a large piece of plywood boarding up a window or door.

The barn has vertical siding that is unpainted accept for on the north eave-facade where it is painted white. The attic gables on the east and west gable-facades have wood shingles that are unpainted. The gable-roofed end of the shed-roofed addition and the second gable-roofed addition are constructed of concrete masonry cinderblocks. The barn has asphalt shingles of the gable-roofs. The flat roof appears to have a type of tar roofing. The foundation, where visible, appears to be made of concrete block masonry.

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 name “30 by 40” originates from its size (in feet), which was large enough for 1 family and could service about 100 acres. The multi-purpose use of the English barn is reflected by the building’s construction in three distinct bays - one for each use. The middle bay was used for threshing, which is separating the seed from the stalk in wheat and oat by beating the stalks with a flail. The flanking bays would be for animals and hay storage.

The 19th century saw the introduction of a basement under the barn to allow for the easy collection and storage of a winter’s worth of manure from the animals sheltered within the building.
The bank barn is characterized by the location of its main floor above grade, either through building into a hillside or by raising the building on a foundation. This innovation, aided by the introduction of windows for light and ventilation, would eventually be joined by the introduction of space to shelter more animals under the main floor of the barn.

Field Notes

n/a

Use (Historic)

• agriculture

Use (Present)

• unknown

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

• Silo

Environment features

• Open Land
• Residential
• Scattered Buildings

Relationship to surroundings

The barn is located southeast of the associated house and faces north with its ridge line running east-west, parallel to Baltic Road. There are what appear to be green houses and other scattered buildings northeast of the barn with open land surrounding the barn. A silo is located on the south side of the barn next to the eastern-most end of the flat-roofed addition.

Building Typology

• English Bank

Materials

• Concrete
• Concrete Block
• Vertical Siding
• Wood Shingle

Structural System

n/a

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle
• Other

Roof type

• Flat
• Gable
• Shed

Approximate Dimensions

n/a

Date Compiled

06/27/2010

Compiled By

S. Lessard and T. Levine, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Photographs by Rick Spencer (rspencer02@snet.net)- 12/9/2010

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.