Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

• National Register

Historic Significance

Architectural Description:

This is a 2 1/2-story gable-entry barn with vertical siding painted red. The eave sides are sheathed with board and batten vertical siding. The ground floor of the gable end facing the street has a single large sliding door. The second floor has two single-pane windows flanking a hay door. An one-over-one window sits below the gable peak. The trim on this window is red, matching the barn while the trim on the other windows and doors is painted white, along with the hay door and sliding door. There is an attached one-story shed-roofed addition on the left eave-side, covering most of the length of the first floor. The east eave-side has a one-story shed-roofed addition at the center flanked by a double-hung window to left and right. Above in the second floor there appears to be a single-pane window near the left (south) corner. The girt line sheathing boards on the south gable-end are cut to a point. Grade slopes down toward the rear (north).

Historical Significance:

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. With the main drive floor running parallel to the ridge, the size of the barn could be increased to accommodate larger herds by adding additional bays to the rear gable end.  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, as both types continued to be built.

Historical Background:

Brigham’s Tavern is listed on the National Register for Historic Places.
The other structure on the property is a c. 1870 barn. It is 3 floors tall, with the third suspended from the barn’s rafters, in an unusual framing arrangement (Zimmerman).

Field Notes

Stone plaque in front: “THE BRIGHAMS --- GEORGE WASHINGTON Breakfasted here November 9, 1783 as recorded in his diary.” National Register of Historic Places 3/25/1982

Use (Historic)

• unknown

Use (Present)

• garage

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

• Barn
• Garage
• Garden
• Other
• Stone Walls

Environment features

• Residential
• Rural
• Scattered Buildings
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

Brigham’s Tavern in Coventry, Connecticut, is a capacious, 2-story central-chimney, clapboarded structure dating from the late 18th century, with two substantial additions, one at the rear and the other along the west end of the house. Set back on a narrow lawn, once the Tavern’s driveway, the Tavern faces south directly alongside the old Hartford to Boson Turnpike, now Route 44A. It is located just west of the Willimantic River and the hamlet of Mansfield Depot. The surrounding area is lightly settled and rural in character. Stone foundations east of the barn are those of another barn, blown down in the Hurricane of 1938. That barn was probably a late 18th- or early 19th-century structure (Zimmerman).
The property is a 1.26-acre parcel located at the northeast corner of Boston Turnpike and Brighams Tavern Road. Several other historic homes are in the vicinity, along with a number of 20th-century residential properties. Much of the landscape is wooded, with a few areas of open land remaining from the farming that was prevalent in the 19th century.

Building Typology

• New England

Materials

• Vertical Siding

Structural System

• Wood Frame

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle

Roof type

• Gable

Approximate Dimensions

24 feet x 38 feet

Date Compiled

12/04/2008

Compiled By

T. Levine, C. Hitchcock, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Photographs by Charlotte R. Hitchcock.

Town of Coventry assessor’s office GIS Viewer www.wincog-gis.org
Parcel ID: 012-0030-0003A   1.26 acre.

Aerial Mapping:
http://www.bing.com/maps accessed 02/12/2011.

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.

Zimmerman, Sarah, Brighams Tavern National Register Nomination No. 82004383, 1982.