[Golden Rectangle] Barn

or [Square Cattle] Barn, Single-Pen Barn?

Diagnostics

Elements* = diagnostic

(few observed closely)

Size: ** Medium Small size: About 18-22 by 22-26 feet
Shape: * Squarish narrow rectangular footprint
Height: * Moderate-height ground floor with moderate-height hayloft above (1.25 to 1.5 story height)
Width: ** 2 bays wide
Depth: ** 2 to 3 bays deep
Roof: * Only examples are gable, with gable-front orientation
Door: Usually only stock doors or entry doors; usually one per elevation. No cart, wagon or threshing doors. Any hay doors tend to be small and few. Doors tend to have no pattern, other than a tendency to be at corners.
Plan: * Single room with no floor; hayloft above sometimes survives
Structure: * Early; post & timber, usually hewn or mill-sawn
Ornament: unadorned

Features

(only three interiors observed)

Few and small windows
Interior is plain and utilitarian
Hayloft is usually loose poles or beams, and easily and often removed

Observations

Only four examples noted (as of 6/10/02) so little statistical accuracy

Proportions are similar to rectangular single-pen log houses, or Hall & Parlor-plan houses. This barn type may be a second generation barn, directly derived from traditional and practical proportions of log barns. The hewn timbers and rough-quarried or fieldstone pier foundations tend to indicate these are early barns.

May look similar to the [Mountain Stable] Barn type, but those have a wide-rectangular/eave orientation and a distinctive central passage plan; [Golden Rectangle] barns tend to have a narrow-rectangular/gable-front orientation and no interior divindions.

Range

Observed in rich but rolling farmland
Part of large and small farmsteads

Regions Observed:

4: west central Ohio (Clinton & Champaign counties)
1(?): greater Great Black Swamp (Hancock County)

References

There is nothing I know of published on this type in geographic publications of midwestern or national scope. Research, observation, and documentation is required.

Names

[Golden Rectangle] Barn - The best I can think of at the moment. The approximately 16x25 foot dimensions may be an ideal rectangle (applied kbc 6/6/02).
[Square Cattle] Bar - My first name, until I realized that these are rectangular (applied kbc 6/1/02).
Single-Pen Barn - My second name, until I realized that these are rectangular and thus not the typical square single-pen proportions (applied kbc 6/1/02).

Examples:

images are approximately same scale, though seen through different 35mm camera lenses (28mm, 50mm, or various for b/w images) or varying artist's perspective and accuracy

Built

Small barn adjacent and almost attached to rear of the primary Yankee Barn on farmstead at 1727 Prairie Road, Wilmington vicinity, Union Township, Clinton County, Ohio, USA. Surveyed in the Wilmington Bypass architectural survey by Kevin Coleman and Anna as AL083 and renumbered as AL085. Inventoried as CLI-256-5.

The barn is 160 by 25 feet, has a hewn post & beam frame, vertical board siding, circular-sawn rafters, and a standing seam gable-front roof. The materials indicate a date of [c1830-1860]. Presumably the gable-front orientation is correct, and the roof was rebuilt when the Yankee barn was built.

The barn may have been moved to the rear of the new Yankee barn, or the Yankee barn was built directly in front of the small barn. The latter is more probable since the county road originally passed behind the tract; if the small barn was built during that time, and if it were not moved, the exposed gabled elevation is the original front.

The house is a vernacular gabled ell, and there are no other barns on the tract. A chicken coop and small workshop are nearby.

Small barn associated with a brick I-Cottage at about 1807 Mitchell Road, Wilmington vicinity, Union Township, Clinton County, Ohio, USA. Inventoried as CLI-248-5.

The barn is 20 by 25 feet, has a mill-sawn post & beam frame, vertical beaded siding, and a standing seam gable-front roof. The materials indicate a date of c1850-1870. A sliding wagon door is on the right side of the front, and a door (I'm not sure if it is a hay door or other) is in the front gable. Later lean-to sheds for stabling skirt the barn 12 feet deep on three sides. The lean-to roof was decaying on the far side, so the barn may not be long for the world, if it is still extant.

The house and barn are located close to a small but sharp ravine, almost pinned in by the road. The house faces the barn, not the road. No other outbuildings exist.

First labled as a small Transverse Frame barn, then as a small New England barn, I think it fits best into this "Golden Rectangle" barn type better (now that I have it better defined). The barn is the right dimensions (20 by 25 feet), right proportions (sort of a golden rectangle), right orientation (narrow rectangle, gable front), and the right age (mill-sawn wood indicates an early date) to fit.

Small barn attached to four-bay primary Yankee Barn and other secondary barns/sheds in farmstead at 1939 Prairie Road, Wilmington vicinity, Union Township, Clinton County, Ohio, USA. Recorded 11/98 as arcloc 092 (later 088) and inventoried as CLI-258-5. (The farmstead is also a good example of an agglomerated barn complex.)

The barn faces southwest, to the side of the primary barn, which faces southeast towards the road. The barn is 20 by about 25 feet, has a recycled post & beam frame, vertical board siding, and a corrugated steel gable-front roof. The materials indicate a date of c1860-1880(?).

A hoist beam projects out from the front peak and is sheltered by the projecting ridge, with swinging gable doors. A concrete silo is attached to the southeast corner. A full-depth lean-to is on the northwest side. No door appears to exist on the southwest side (entry is through a wagon door in the lean-to), but a sealed entry door is on the southeast corner. Two 6-pane windows are on the southwest side. The northeast side faces a small cattle yard and appears to have a sliding wagon door on the north side. A small vent window is in the gable.

The barn is used as a calf barn. The attached Yankee barn stores hay(?) and equipment(?), and the attached loafing shed to the northwest gives the calves room to gather under shelter.

The barn is the right dimensions, right proportions (sort of a golden rectangle), right orientation (narrow rectangle, gable front) to be a Golden Rectangle type barn, thogh it may be a little late. But, the Yankee barn is a traditional form yet has a plank frame and trussed roof, so the builder may have been conservative in his forms but contemporary in his structure.

The farmstead located on level to rolling land. The house and primary barn face the road. Several other outbuildings exist, including ....

Small barn in farmstead in Urbana Bypass Survey, Champaign County, Ohio, USA. This was the first recognized of this type.

"The Old Barn" on the Dairy Farm of C.W. Ford in Hancock County, 1906, as described in "The Ohio Farmer" of 19 May 1906. Only one end is visible, but clearly. It has a roof pitch of about 30 degrees, lower that the other two known examples. I cannot tell exactly how deep the barn is, but it appears to be 20 to 30 feet deep because the silo catty-corner to it is bridged to the cattle barn beside it. But it clearly has a stock window, possibly a Dutch stock door, and a hayloft door. The below description clearly indicates it has a hayloft.

Presumably this is one of, if not the original, barn of the farmstead. The owner writes in the article that:

The old barn, or barn proper, ... is much like other such barns, except that it is in need of repair. A kind of a general store-house for feed and livestock, maybe a few tools, a wagon or two, and that faithful old fanning mill which is stowed away upstairs...

The "barn proper" implies that this is an unspecialized barn (per Noble & Wilhelm 1995, Barns of the Midwest p9) in contrast to the six others described in the article. Observation and analysis indicates that earlier barns (c1800-c1865) tend to be 1) small, 2) simple, and 3) unspecialized. This apparently fits these parameters.

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