Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

• National Register
• State Register

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

This is a traditional three-bay 2 ½-story eave-entry barn with a gable-roof.  This is a connected barn attached to the rear ell of the large Gothic Revival house at 61 Putnam Road.  The barn is aligned parallel with the main part of the house, which is also parallel to Putnam Road.  The rear ell is perpendicular in alignment.  Putnam road passes this property at a northeast to southwest angle.  The primary façade of this barn is the southeast eave-side. 

The primary façade of this barn is the southeast eave-side, which contains the primary entries.  These consist of two oversize doors, one each in the southern and central bays.  The southern door is an overhead sliding type and is blank, while the central door is of wood panel construction and appears to include a single window where the central panel would be.  The rear ell of the house has a gable roof and attaches to the northern and central bays.  The southern portion of the ell is open, creating a stall-like overhang, and allowing access from the south side to the central-bay barn door.  The ridgeline of the rear-ell roof comes up to a point just beneath the eave of the barn roof.  A rectangular hay door is centered over the southern oversize door in the second floor.  No other openings are apparent on the barn façade.

The southwest gable-end of this barn contains a single square window opening on the first-story near the south corner.  A rectangular opening is centered within the gable-attic, but this appears to have been covered over from the inside.  Cornice returns are present on this gable-end, one architectural carryover from the immense detail found on the exterior of the house.
The northwest eave-side appears to contain two window openings on the first-story, one in the southern bay and one in the central bay.  The northwest gable-end contains two window openings on the first-story: a square window near the east corner, and a skinny rectangular window slightly off-center to the west.  The second story also contains a single square window opening, slightly off-center to the east.  A square window opening is centered within the gable-attic.  As on the other gable-end, this end also has exposed cornice returns. 

The exterior of this barn is faced with horizontal wooden clapboard siding, painted white.  The roof is covered with medium gray asphalt shingles.  These exterior treatments closely match the materials used on the exterior of the house, a highly decorated Gothic Revival dwelling.

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.

Connected barns tied all of the functions of a farmstead - home, hearth, workplace and barn - into a series of linked buildings. This is the “big house, little house, back house, barn” of nursery rhymes.

Historical background:

This barn and house are located just to the north of the village center of Central Village. Central Village is a distinct settlement within the town of Plainfield. Much of the village was designated as a Historic District on the National Register of Historic Places in 1991. The house at 61 Putnam Road is of the Gothic Revival style and is one of several large high-styled houses on larger-than-average lots fronting Putnam Road. Records indicate this house was constructed in 1866, although the barn may pre-date this slightly.  Most of the houses in this district were built in the mid to late 1800s, putting this house squarely in the middle of a large-house construction boom during that era. See the National Register nomination forms linked in the Sources section of this Historic Resource Inventory for more information about the Central Village Historic District.

Field Notes

http://hosting.tighebond.com/plainfield/main.htm 61 Putnam Rd .6 acre House: 1865 Parcel ID: 014/0084/0013 & 0 Loring Street .3 acre Parcel ID: 014/0084/0012 BANK BARN  c. 1865  25' x  33' 825 square feet Located in the Central Village National Register Historic District.

Use (Historic)

• agriculture

Use (Present)

• unknown

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

n/a

Environment features

• High Density
• Open Land
• Residential
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

This barn is connected to the rear ell of the house at 61 Putnam Road, and may be difficult to clearly see from the street.  The barn is accessed via an asphalt driveway which passes along the southwest side of the house, leading directly to the south side of the ell and the façade of the barn. The yard surrounding the house and barn is primarily a grass lawn, with very scattered trees.  Scattered dwellings surround this house, also with large lawns.  Just up Putnam Road to the north is a large school complex with historic and modern school buildings, football stadium with running track, and parking lots.  This barn and house are located to the north of the center of the Central Village Historic District, and the surrounding blocks of Putnam Road primarily to the south include several high-styled dwellings, many with associated barns or carriage houses.  The historic Plainfield High School is the furthest extent north of this historic district, located just two properties up the street at 87 Putnam Road.

Building Typology

• Connected

Materials

• Clapboard
• Horizontal Siding

Structural System

n/a

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle

Roof type

• Gable

Approximate Dimensions

BANK BARN c. 1865 25' x 33' 825 square feet.

Date Compiled

06/13/2011

Compiled By

N. Nietering & T. Levine, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Photographs by Charles and Irene Hutchinson.

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, 213 pages.

Map of Plainfield, CT, retrieved on June 13, 2011 from website www.bing.com.

Plainfield Assessor’s Records - Plainfield, CT Assessor Database online - http://plainfield.ias-clt.com/parcel.list.php

Clouette, Bruce and Roth, Matthew, “Central Village Historic District,” National Register Nomination Form, 1991. Available from the Web: http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NRHP/Text/91000949.pdf