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Glossary — B
Barn
A building for the storage and processing of grain crops, and for housing straw.
The requirements of barns remained comparatively unaltered between the twelfth and early nineteenth centuries:
- well-ventilated interior for the storage of the harvested crop and an area (the threshing floor) for beating by flail the grain from the crop and for winnowing the grain from the chaff in a cross draught. This was also an area for the storage of straw after threshing.
- well-ventilated interior for the storage of the harvested crop and an area (the threshing floor) for beating by flail the grain from the crop and for winnowing the grain from the chaff in a cross draught. This was also an area for the storage of straw after threshing.
- doors on the side walls to the threshing floor, which was most commonly sited in the centre, and occasionally off-centre or at one end. The size of these is subject to much regional variation. Barns on large arable farms commonly had large opposing doors, sometimes with porches, into which a laden wagon would draw up and unload the crop.
- In some pastoral-farming areas, especially in the north and west of the country, the doors to the threshing bay could be much smaller and the crop would be forked into the barn through pitching holes. Smaller winnowing doors were commonly provided in these areas.
Threshing Barn
Threshing barns were solely built for storing and processing the grain crop. They include staddle barns.
| Monastic barn at Bradford-on-Avon.This large medieval barn, built by one of the wealthy monasteries of the Region, provided storage and processing space for the grange farm and storage for tithe, the proportion of crops paid to the church by ordinary farmers. (Cotswolds) © Bob Edwards |
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| (Left) Timber-framed barn with typical square panel framing, the earlier (16th-century) and more substantial framing being visible to the right. The brick infill dates from the 18th century. (Shropshire, Cheshire and Staffordshire Plain) © Bob Edwards (Right) Large, 18th-century seven bay threshing barn with a central threshing floor. (South Herefordshire and Over Severn) © Mr Alan Earle; |
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| By the late 18th century many of the large, reorganised farmsteads of the lowlands and parts of the transitional areas of the Region were provided with barns that were designed to incorporate machinery and consisted of two barns, one for threshing, usually at first-floor level, the other serving as a straw barn, often arranged at right angles. This example has the straw barn to the left with the twstorey threshing barn to the right. (Cheviot Fringe) © Jen Deadman |
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| Where built, threshing barns in the northern uplands – such as this early 19th century example) – were typically of 3 bays © English Heritage |
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Threshing machines were most commonly powered by horses accommodated in a projecting wheel house, these being particularly common in the north-east and south-west. Wheel houses have been highly vulnerable to removal, and surviving examples are rare.
Water power and rarely wind power was also used, and by the 1830s steam power was also used in areas such as Northumberland with easy access to coal supplies.
The introduction of the portable steam engine and threshing machine in the 1850s heralded the end of the traditional barn as a storage and processing building, as the crop could be processed outdoors. These machines have left no trace in the architecture or archaeology of farmsteads, except in the belt drives and shafting that conveyed power to mixing rooms elsewhere in the barn.
Horse engines, as found in wheelhouses, and in-situ threshing or winnowing machines, are exceptionally rare.
Split-level mixing barns developed from the later 18th century as a result of the widespread introduction of machinery for processing corn and fodder.
After the late 19th century, many barns were converted into cow houses and fodder processing and storage buildings.
Combination Barn
Combination barns combined this and other functions, such as animal housing. Combination barns with horses or cattle accommodated at one end are concentrated in lowland landscapes of dispersed settlement and ancient enclosure, and in upland landscapes of northern and western England. They include bank barns.
| Typical of many Cotswold farmsteads is this five-bay barn built in limestone with a central porch and coped gables.The door and hayloft door above show that this barn was a combination building, probably incorporating a stable at one end. © David J Lewis |
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| A typical on-the-level barn with a central threshing floor and shippons arranged across the width of the building to either side accessed by cross passages at each end. Although quite plain, the chamfers to window and door openings and inside, an aisled timber-frame, indicate a possible 17th-century date. (Lancashire Valleys) |  |
| A mid-16th-century unaisled barn. Many early timber-framed barns were multi-functional buildings that provided crop storage and animal housing, often with floored bays.This barn originally had three bays of stabling with lofts over, one of which was converted to barn space in the 18th century. Smaller barns often had all the animal housing function removed to provide increased crop storage capacity from the 18th century.(South Suffolk and North Essex Claylands) © English Heritage / Michael Williams |
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| A 17th-century unaisled combination barn. (Yorkshire Dales) © Jen Deadman |
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Power in Barns
Threshing machines were most commonly powered by horses accommodated in a projecting wheel house, these being particularly common in the north-east and south-west. Horse engines, as found in wheelhouses, and in-situ threshing or winnowing machines, are exceptionally rare.
Portable gear, set up outside the barn, was also used in some areas in the mid 19th century and would not leave any trace in the barn.
The introduction of the portable steam engine and threshing machine in the 1850s heralded the end of the traditional barn as a storage and processing building, as the crop could be processed outdoors.
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| A projecting horse engine house that contains a rare example of an in situ horse gin. (North West Norfolk) © English Heritage / Michael Williams |
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Water power and rarely wind power was also used, and by the 1830s steam power was also used in areas such as Northumberland with easy access to coal supplies.
| A farmstead that incorporated a fixed steam engine to drive threshing and other crop- and fodder-processing equipment. (Bedfordshire and Cambridgeshire Claylands) © English Heritage / Michael Williams |
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| These machines have left no trace in the architecture or archaeology of farmsteads, except in the belt drives and shafting that conveyed power to mixing rooms elsewhere in the barn. (Dorset Downs and Cranborne Chase) © Bob Edwards |
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| A mixing barn in Lincolnshire. Split-level mixing barns developed from the later 18th century as a result of the widespread introduction of machinery for processing corn and fodder. |  |
| The Northumberland barn consisted of two attached buildings: the threshing barn and the straw barn.The threshing machine was at first-floor level, the threshed grain dropping to the ground floor where it was bagged, and the straw passing through to the straw barn. Often the threshing barn was built into a bank or provided with a ramp to ease the loading of the crop into the threshing area. In this example the threshing machinery is powered by a horse-engine. (Cheviot Fringe) © English Heritage |
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Bank barn
A combination barn of usually two storeys. Through constructing the barn against a bank, both floors can be entered from ground level.
Typically bank barns have a threshing barn, sometimes with a granary and hayloft, sited above cattle housing, stabling and other functions such as cart sheds.
They could be placed across the slope or along the slope. The former are known as variant bank barns. Many examples are of pre-1750 date. Buildings of this form are found throughout the upland landscapes of northern Europe, and allow livestock to be accommodated on part of the ground floor. The gable was always built into the bank, with the barn projecting into the valley. They are concentrated in the Lake District, especially to the east, and occur elsewhere in upland areas from the Dark Peak northwards.
The earliest examples of the classic form of true bank barn built along the slope may be late medieval, the documentary and building evidence indicating that large-scale examples were built on gentry estates from the late 16th century and became widespread after 1750. They are characteristic of the Lakeland area of the North West Region and parts of Devon, Somerset and Cornwall in the South West Region.
| Facing on to a yard, this bank barn, locally called a ‘chall barn’, provided accommodation for cattle in shippons at ground level and on the first floor a threshing barn with ground-level access at the rear and a granary accessed by steps at one end. During the early to mid-19th century many cob and thatch farm buildings were replaced by the multi-functional bank barn. (Cornish Killas) © Bob Edwards |
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| Cornish bank barn or ‘chall barn’ showing the first-floor barn over ground floor shippons and a fodder preparation area.This example is a true bank barn in that it is built into a bank giving ground-level access to the entrance of the first-floor barn. In Cornwall some chall barns were built on level ground, with steps giving access to the first-floor barn. © English Heritage |
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| Bank barns. On the left is a ‘true’ bank barn in that the threshing floor is accessed in its long side whereas in the ‘variant’ bank barn the upper level access is at the gable with the building set end-on into the slope. (Left: Eden Valley, Cumbria; Right: Cumbria High Fells) |  |
Bastle
Fortified house of two or three storeys, the lower floor being used to house animals and the upper for domestic use. Examples are concentrated in Cumberland and Northumberland, and extend southwards into the North Pennines.
Bastle houses generally date from the 16th to the 17th centuries although some are earlier. The cattle were housed on the ground floor, usually with the doorway in a gable end, and the domestic space in a room above was accessed by a ladder or later an external staircase. With stone walls up to 1.2m thick, the bastle house and its walled enclosure (the barmkin) offered farmers a defensive retreat where the family and stock could be secure from cattle rustlers in an area that remained lawless into the 17th century. In contrast to the tower houses with enclosed yards which were built between the late 14th and 16th centuries as refuges for high-status families and the tenants and inhabitants of an area, bastles were often built in clusters or even in villages.
The addition of external staircases and the widening of windows became more common in the 18th century.
| Bastle houses were fortified farmhouses, usually of high status, in which the family lived at first-floor level.This was accessed by a ladder that could be withdrawn in times of trouble, with their cattle housed on the ground floor (see also Figure 28A).Thick stone walls, small window openings and added steps up to the first floor are characteristic features. Bastle houses reflect the turbulent history of the borders area of the north of England, especially between the mid-16th and early 17th centuries. (Cheviot Fringe) |  |
Bay
From the medieval period, the unit of reference in timber-framed and mass-walled buildings became the bay, the distance between principal roof trusses. These bays could also mark out different areas of storage within barns and other buildings.
Bercereies (sheep houses)
Medieval name for sheep houses – shelters provided for sheep usually in areas of grazing away from the farmstead.
Bronze Age
Period of human history from (in NW Europe) approximately 2,000-900BC
Byre (see shippon and hovel)
Dialect term for cowhouse, commonly used in Yorkshire and the North East.
Byre House
This is a term used to describe linear farmstead buildings in County Durham which provided domestic accommodation over cattle, like the much earlier bastle houses. They date from the later 18th and early 19th centuries and have much larger window openings and thinner walls than bastles.
| Although the Union of the Crowns in 1603 brought greater security to the area, the tradition of living above the cattle continued in the socalled ‘byre houses,’ which continued to be built into the 19th century (North Pennines). Larger windows and contemporary steps to the first floor indicate that these buildings were not defensive. |  |
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