Barns in NH

Highland Croft Foundation

HIghland Croft needs your help to preserve these important landmarks

Preserve and Promote the Unique Culture and Heritage
of New Hampshire's North Country
Barns in NH

Highland Croft wants to preserve these wonderful structures in our midst and promote the North Country's unique culture

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Barns in New Hampshire

How did they make those great barns? The large scale of timber for their post and beam construction was only possible using the great chestnut trees that dominated the Eastern forests in earlier America. With trunks the size of the pacific sequoias we still know today, our chestnut trees easily offered the 10 to 20” beams that would span the frames of barns from 50 to 70 feet across. But now the Chestnuts are gone, killed by blight, and the architecture that utilized their massive abundance is the only legacy left of the trees that built America. These barns are irreplaceable.

The wonder of being in a post and beam barn.
Consider the wonder and comfort you have felt when you sat in the loft of an old barn and gazed up at its massive vaulted interior. You saw the skeleton of timbers that so comfortably held the tin or asphalt roof that covered thousands of bales of hay over the last two centuries. The assurance of dry hay, shelter for a farm of livestock, and also the home of stray cats and occasional kids who might scamper in for safety is the promise of the great barn.

What is needed now?
These barns are well made and can last much longer than our lifetimes. But they need their roofs to be maintained. They don’t often need much more. Yet if the roof goes, the water gets into the ridgepole, which is like the spine of the building, and what happens next is usually ruin.

Preservation is essential -- your action now will save these irreplaceable resources!

How about those Chestnut trees?

Web last updated 03/23/2013 .

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