Architectural description:
This is a 1 ½ story, three bay side-or eave-entry bank barn with two main additions. The barn faces north with its ridge line running east-west. The main entry is a pair of exterior sliding doors in the center bay on the front north eave-facade. To the right of the sliding doors, in the west bay are five evenly spaced window openings at grade level. The east bay has a gable-roofed addition projecting north with a pass-through door on the north gable-facade and a window opening on the west eave-facade of the addition.
The west gable-facade has a haymow door opening above the dropped girt line centered in the attic gable. There is a gable-roofed addition off the south eave-facade that projects west, past the west gable-facade of the main eave-entry barn. There is a pass-through door in the only visible part of the western-most corner of the gable-roofed additions north facade. The gable-roofed addition has a saltbox–roofed addition off the east eave-facade. There are two evenly spaced windows on the south facade of the gable-roofed addition and two evenly spaced window openings on the south facade of the saltbox-roofed addition, all at grade level. Centered in the attic gable is a fixed six-pane window.
Off of the east gable-facade of the main eave-entry barn is a Dutch gambrel-roofed addition. The south eave-facade of the addition appears to have four (visible), evenly spaced window openings below the siding divide in the basement level. The barn has vertical siding, including on all the additions accept the Dutch gambrel-roofed addition with clapboard siding. The sheathing is painted red and the foundation is made of both concrete block masonry and concrete. The barn has an asphalt shingled roof.
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
Listed on the State Register of Historic Places 3/05/2014. English bank barn altered over time to reflect different phases of dairy farming. Complex barn on active dairy farm, numerous buildings and fields. Larry, his wife Susan, and their two adult daughters, Megan and Lauren run the 370 acre Hastings' Farm in Suffield, Connecticut. Three generations of Hastings have worked the land and managed the dairy, and now they are moving toward their fourth. Megan and Lauren are also looking to make a go of it when their parents retire (http://www.cabotcheese.coop/Hastings_Farm).
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Unknown
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Orig. barn 40ft by 25 ft (approx!)
06/08/2010
S. Lessard and T. Levine, reviewed by CT Trust
Photographs and field notes by Nina E. Harkrader.
Additional photographs by Megan Hastings - 1/11/2012.
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.