Field barn

{{short description|Type of agricultural building}}

File:Field Barn near Langcliff Cross - geograph.org.uk - 2555314.jpg

A field barn is an outbuilding located in a field, some distance ("further afield") from farmer's residence or the main cluster of buildings that constitute a farmstead.{{cite book |last1=Lake |first1=Jeremy |title=National Farmsteads Character Statement |date=2014 |publisher=Historic England |location=London |url=https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/publications/national-farmsteads-character-statement/ |language=en}} Field barns were necessary when arable fields or valuable pastures were located some distance from a village or the residences of the agricultural workers who tended the fields.{{Cite book |last=Coulthard |first=Sally |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vqyfEAAAQBAJ&dq=%22Field+barn%22+-wikipedia&pg=PT28 |title=The Barn: The Lives, Landscape and Lost Ways of an Old Yorkshire Farm |date=2021-11-11 |publisher=Bloomsbury Publishing |isbn=978-1-80024-087-2 |language=en}} Rather than "commuting" back and forth to the field with livestock, tools, or harvests, the field barn allowed on-site storage (usually of straw, hay, and additional feed), as well as providing shelter for herds during inclement weather or when pregnant cattle or sheep needed respite and a clean place to labor. Field barns were also used for the drying and curing of hay, which protected the nutritional content of the crop better than drying and curing in the field.{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AIbwF3vFknUC&dq=%22Field+barn%22+-wikipedia&pg=RA9-PA35 |title=Technical Bulletin |date=1953 |publisher=U.S. Department of Agriculture |pages=35 |language=en}}

In English agricultural history, many farms ended up "pie-shaped" (in order to connect the farm to the central village) and field barns were constructed at the distant wide end.{{Cite book |last=Hart |first=John Fraser |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=OqQ6K3lGGooC&dq=%22Field+barn%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA129 |title=The Rural Landscape |date=1998-04-10 |publisher=JHU Press |isbn=978-0-8018-5717-1 |pages=129 |language=en}} Early examples in Staffordshire were essentially just a shed, those latterly built often had a foldyard and an additional shelter shed.{{Cite book |last=Peters |first=J. E. C. |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=_A8NAQAAIAAJ&dq=%22Field+barn%22+-wikipedia&pg=PA31 |title=The Development of Farm Buildings in Western Lowland Staffordshire Up to 1880 |date=1969 |publisher=Manchester University Press |pages=31 |language=en}} Field barn construction began to decline with the rise of mechanized threshing.