The Barn

The barn at Braefield Farm is known as a bank barn. It is so called because it was built in the side of a hill and the second floor is at ground level on the back side of the barn. This style of barn construction is standard in Chester County. This keeps the lower section of the barn cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter, as more than half of the lower level is below grade.

Our barn was built in two sections, the early section is mostly stone with post and beam interior and the later section was originally sheathed in board and batten. On the second floor you can see the original end of the barn, there is a stone wall inside that was the original end wall.

The original boards are still there and are in good shape. The boards are random width you can see the original boards in the pictures below. The barn was eventially covered in shingle, aluminum, board and batten, and stucco.

I took some pictures of the barn this fall. You can see the original stone section and the later shingle section is on the other side of the silo. These pictures show the back of the barn, the second floor.


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Here are pictures of the front of the barn which was sheathed in aluminum and end section. The small structure on the far right in the picture of the front of the barn is the milk shed and is stucco. The end is covered in shingle and was an addition to the original barn.


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This fall we had Marty Davis and his crew sheath the entire barn in board and batten. the old shingles and aluminum were removed and the new boards were put on over the original old barn boards. The original barn boards are still in good shape.

The barn looks fabulous. We will have the barn painted in the spring to match the rest of the buildings on the farm.

Margaret sent me this comment as she was watching the crew "I've been thinking about it all week as it facinates me that they could build a structure that size with the tools they probibly had /or didn't have and where did those huge boards come from?"

Thanks to Jim and Margaret for the pictures of the barn under construction. I didn't have a working camera and Margaret kindly took pictures for us as the barn was under construction.

The barn as seen from the Tenet House.. during and after construction.


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The end of the second section of the barn.


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The back of the second section of the barn under construction. I will take a picture of this section completed. The barn doors were also rebuilt and put on sliders.





The front of the barn. You can see the stone end of the original barn at the end of the overhang roof.