A barn is an agricultural building usually on farms and used for various purposes. In North America, a barn refers to structures that house livestock, including cattle and horses, as well as equipment and fodder, and often grain. As a result, the term barn is often qualified e.g. tobacco barn, dairy barn, cow house, sheep barn, potato barn. In the British Isles, the term barn is restricted mainly to storage structures for unthreshed cereals and fodder, the terms byre or shippon being applied to cow shelters, whereas horses are kept in buildings known as stables. In mainland Europe, however, barns were often part of integrated structures known as byre-dwellings. In addition, barns may be used for equipment storage, as a covered workplace, and for activities such as threshing.
Timber framing and "post-and-beam" construction are traditional methods of building with heavy timbers, creating structures using squared-off and carefully fitted and joined timbers with joints secured by large wooden pegs. If the structural frame of load-bearing timber is left exposed on the exterior of the building it may be referred to as half-timbered, and in many cases the infill between timbers will be used for decorative effect. The country most known for this kind of architecture is Germany, where timber framed houses are spread all over the country.
A purlin is a longitudinal, horizontal, structural member in a roof. In traditional timber framing there are three basic types of purlin: purlin plate, principal purlin, and common purlin.
Dutch barn is the name given to markedly different types of barns in the United States and Canada, and in the United Kingdom. In the United States, Dutch barns represent the oldest and rarest types of barns. There are relatively few—probably fewer than 600—of these barns still intact. Common features of these barns include a core structure composed of a steep gabled roof, supported by purlin plates and anchor beam posts, the floor and stone piers below. Little of the weight is supported by the curtain wall, which could be removed without affecting the stability of the structure. Large beams of pine or oak bridge the center aisle for animals to provide room for threshing. Entry was through paired doors on the gable ends with a pent roof over them, and smaller animal doors at the corners of the same elevations. The Dutch Barn has a square profile, unlike the more rectangular English or German barns. In the United Kingdom a structure called a Dutch barn is a relatively recent agricultural development meant specifically for hay and straw storage; most examples were built from the 19th century. British Dutch barns represent a type of pole barn in common use today. Design styles range from fixed roof to adjustable roof; some Dutch barns have honeycombed brick walls, which provide ventilation and are decorative as well. Still other British Dutch barns may be found with no walls at all, much like American pole barns.
The Oliver Brewster House is a Gothic Revival home located on Willow Avenue in Cornwall, New York, United States, right across from Willow Avenue Elementary School. It was originally built as a farmhouse in the mid-19th century. Later, as Cornwall became a popular summer resort for visitors from New York City, it was expanded and renovated for use as a boardinghouse as well.
A bent in American English is a transverse rigid frame. Historically, bents were a common way of making a timber frame; they are still often used for such, and are also seen in small steel-frame buildings, where the term portal frame is more commonly used. The term is also used for the cross-ways support structures in a trestle. In British English this assembly is called a "cross frame". The term bent is probably an archaic past tense of the verb to bind, referring to the way the timbers of a bent are joined together. The Dutch word is bint, the West Frisian is bynt, and the German is bind. Compare this with the term bend for a class of knots.
The Skinner-Tinkham House, commonly known as the Barre Center Tavern, is located at Maple Street and Oak Orchard Road in Barre Center, New York, United States. It is a brick house in the Federal style built around 1830. It was renovated after the Civil War, which brought some Italianate touches to it.
The Cornelius Carman House is located along River Road South in Chelsea, New York, United States. It is a wooden house built in the 1830s, overlooking the Hudson River, for Carman, operator of a local shipyard and inventor of a moveable centerboard.
The Stephen Miller House, also known as the Van Wyck-Miller House, is located along the NY 23 state highway in Claverack, New York, United States. It is a wooden farmhouse dating from the late 18th century.
St. Thomas' Episcopal Church is located on Leedsville Road in Amenia Union, New York, United States. It is a mid-19th century brick church designed by Richard Upjohn in the Gothic Revival architectural style, built for a congregation organized shortly before.
The Terwilliger–Smith Farm is located on Cherrytown Road near the hamlet of Kerhonkson in the Town of Rochester in Ulster County, New York, United States. It was established in the mid-19th century.
The Storm–Adriance–Brinckerhoff House is located on Beekman Road in East Fishkill, New York, United States. It is a wooden building in three parts, the oldest of which dates to the mid-18th century.
Bykenhulle, originally known as Ivy Hall, is a historic house located on Bykenhulle Road near the hamlet of Hopewell Junction, New York, United States, in the Town of East Fishkill. It is a wooden house in the Greek Revival architectural style.
The Newcomb–Brown Estate is located at the junction of the US 44 highway and Brown Road in Pleasant Valley, New York, United States. It is a brick structure built in the 18th century just before the Revolution and modified slightly by later owners but generally intact. Its basic Georgian style shows some influences of the early Dutch settlers of the region.
Lynfeld is a farm located on South Road in the Town of Washington, New York, United States, near the village of Millbrook. Its farmhouse, a frame structure dating to the late 19th century, is in an unusual shape for a building in the Italianate architectural style.
The Jacob P. Perry House is a historic home on Sickletown Road in Pearl River, New York, United States. It was constructed around the end of the 18th century, one of the last houses in Rockland County to have been built in the Dutch Colonial style more common before the Revolution.
The George Rymph House is a historic house located on Albany Post Road in Hyde Park, New York, United States. It is a stone house built during the 1760s by a recent German immigrant. In 1993, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Hendrick Martin House is located on Willowbrook Lane in the town of Red Hook, New York, United States, just north of the eponymous village. It is a stone house built in two phases in the mid- and late 18th century. In 2007 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
A post is a main vertical or leaning support in a structure similar to a column or pillar but the term post generally refers to a timber but may be metal or stone. A stud in wooden or metal building construction is similar but lighter duty than a post and a strut may be similar to a stud or act as a brace. In the U.K. a strut may be very similar to a post but not carry a beam. In wood construction posts normally land on a sill, but in rare types of buildings the post may continue through to the foundation called an interrupted sill or into the ground called earthfast, post in ground, or posthole construction. A post is also a fundamental element in a fence. The terms "jack" and "cripple" are used with shortened studs and rafters but not posts, except in the specialized vocabulary of shoring.
The New England Barn was the most common style of barn built in most of the 19th century in rural New England and variants are found throughout the United States. This style barn superseded the ”three-bay barn” in several important ways. The most obvious difference is the location of the barn doors on the gable-end(s) rather than the sidewall(s). The New England and three bay barns were used similarly as multipurpose farm buildings but the New England barns are typically larger and have a basement. Culturally the New England Barn represents a shift from subsistence farming to commercial farming thus are larger and show significant changes in American building methods and technologies. Most were used as dairy barns but some housed teams of oxen which are generally called teamster barns. Sometimes these barns are simply called “gable fronted” and “gable fronted bank barns” but these terms are also used for barns other than the New England style barn such as in Maryland and Virginia which is not exactly the same style as found in New England. A similar style found in parts of the American mid-west and south is called a transverse frame barn or transverse crib barn.
