A housebarn (also house-barn or house barn) is a building that is a combination of a house and a barn under the same roof. [1] [2] Most types of housebarn also have room for livestock quarters. If the living quarters are only combined with a byre, whereas the cereals are stored outside the main building, the house is called a byre-dwelling.
There are several styles of housebarns. One style is a building where the barn portion shares a wall with the house portion. [3] Sometimes the house portion will extend into part of the loft on the second storey of the barn portion. [3]
Another style features the barn as the lower portion of the building and the house as the second floor [3] such as the Black Forest-style house.[ why? ] Similarly but for different reasons, some defensive house structures such as the bastle house [4] and some tower houses combine animals on the ground floor and living quarters above, a security measure against raids. For example, bastle houses are found along the Anglo-Scottish border, in areas formerly plagued by border Reivers.
Housebarns were built beginning in prehistoric times after people discovered that the body heat of animals helps to warm human living areas. [5] The ancient four room house is an Iron Age type highly identified with the ancient Israelites. [6]
Living with livestock in the combined building also allowed people to be able to prevent thieves from stealing their animals. [1] Housebarns were developed in western Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles [7] and continued being built into the 19th century. The first three designs in the 1839 edition of An Encyclopædia of Cottage, Farm, and Villa Architecture and Furniture... were for combined living space for the farm family and their animals. [8] Immigrants to North America rarely built housebarns; they typically divided the barn and house functions into separate buildings [7] although part of New England in particular is known for its connected farms.
Owners have stated that they find it convenient to not have to walk outside while feeding or watching a medical issue such as birth of animal young. [3] They often can hear the animal noises, which can be disruptive or helpful when an animal has problems. [3]
One American builder estimates that 5% of its buildings have an attached living area, some of which are small apartments. [3] They cite several concerns about building a housebarn. Since fewer people are interested in owning a living quarters attached to the house, housebarns have a more limited marketability. [3] This causes lending institutions to be less likely to grant a loan. [3] Bankers are less likely to accept housebarns as collateral. [3] Housebarns are more costly to insure since they are treated like barns, which have a higher risk of fire. [3] The house portion may get unwanted pests that are common in barns like mice, flies, and birds. [3]
In Belgium, most of farms were housebarns, referred to as Langgevelboerderij (long-facade farm) in Dutch and simply cinse (farm) in Walloon, then ferme in French. They were located in the heart of the village until the early 1950s. At that time, barns, at first, then stables began to be built outside the main building, or even outside the village.
Housebarns in Germany are generally called an einhaus (single-house or "all-in-one house"), eindachhof (one-roof-house) or wohnstallhaus (residential barn house).
The Middle German house group includes:
The Middle German houses have a floor plan transverse to the walls where the Low German houses are longitudinal floor plan, three aisled buildings (dreischiffige).
The Low German house group extends from the Netherlands to East Prussia and includes:
The Gulf house (Gulfhaus) is named for the storage area called a gulf. Its range extends across the North Sea coastal regions from West Flanders to Elbe-Weser Triangle. The Gulf house developed from the Old Frisian farmhouse.
The Geestharden house named for the geography of part of the region it is found, the geest, in Northern Germany, Denmark, and northern Netherlands. The Geestharden, Gulf house (including its variant, the Haubarg) and the Low German hall house are the three basic, historic farmhouse types in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein.
Other house types in southern Germany include:
The Upper Lusatian house or Umgebinde is another barn-house type found in a region in part of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic, a wider range than the historical region of Upper Lusatia. This is a transversely divided Middle German house with unique construction features.
The Black Forest house group are found in southwest Germany in the black forest region and include:
Housebarns were common in the Schleswig-Holstein region of German in the 17th and 18th centuries. [10]
Combined farmhouses and barns in a number of different styles can be found in several areas of the Netherlands. [13] A general list of farm types in the Dutch language is here.
Hall-farmhouse group (hallenhuisboerderij) also known as the Low German house group:
Cross house group (dwarshuisgroep):
Northern house group (noordelijke huisgroep) also called the Frisian house group (Friese huisgroep):
Housebarns are more prevalent in areas that were settled by German immigrants. There are twelve historic housebarns in the United States. [2] Many of these housebarns are listed on the National Register of Historic Places:
European farmhouse types | ||
|---|---|---|
(If the same type of house is known by alternative names, it may be linked more than once.) | ||
| Old European |  | |
| German | ||
| Danish | ||
| Dutch | ||
| British | ||
| Scottish | ||
| Swiss | ||
| French | ||
| Spanish | ||
| Italian | ||
| Swedish | ||
| Malta | ||
| Carpathian | ||
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.
Bastel, bastle, or bastille houses are a type of construction found along the Anglo-Scottish border, in the areas formerly plagued by border reivers. They are fortified farmhouses, characterised by security measures against raids. Their name is said to derive from the French word "bastille".
A longhouse or long house is a type of long, proportionately narrow, single-room building for communal dwelling. It has been built in various parts of the world including Asia, Europe, and North America.
The Dartmoor longhouse is a type of traditional stone-built home, typically found on the high ground of Dartmoor, in Devon, England and belonging to a wider tradition of combining human residences with those of livestock under a single roof specific to western Britain; Wales, Cornwall and Devon, where they are more usually referred to simply as longhouses and in general housebarns.
A farmhouse is a building that serves as the primary quarters in a rural or agricultural setting. Historically, farmhouses were often combined with space for animals called a housebarn. Other farmhouses may be connected to one or more barns, built to form a courtyard, or with each farm building separate from each other.
A connected farm is an architectural design common in the New England region of the United States, and England and Wales in the United Kingdom. North American connected farms date back to the 17th century, while their British counterparts have also existed for several centuries. New England connected farms are characterized by a farm house, kitchen, barn, or other structures connected in a rambling fashion. This style evolved from carrying out farm work while remaining sheltered from winter weather. In the United Kingdom there are four distinct types of connected farmsteads, all dissimilar to the New England style.
The Low German house or Fachhallenhaus is a type of timber-framed farmhouse found in northern Germany and the easternmost Netherlands, which combines living quarters, byre and barn under one roof. It is built as a large hall with bays on the sides for livestock and storage and with the living accommodation at one end.
A "Head-Neck-Body farmhouse" or Head-Neck-Rump farmhouse is a typical Frisian farmhouse. It consists of a residence and a kitchen placed in line in front of a big shed. A striking fact is that the residence was never built in the centre front of the shed – this has to do with the origin of this type of farmhouse from a smaller type of farmhouse that has now disappeared. This original Old Frisian longhouse consisted of a residence with a cattle shed immediately behind it. The harvest was stacked in the attic or in open barns which were logically located near the livestock shed.
Old Frisian longhouses were, as the name indicates, long-bodied houses which can be found in the Dutch province Friesland. This type of house had more than two different parts behind or beside each part. It is the forerunner of the "Head-Neck-Body farmhouse".
The Middle German house is a style of traditional German farmhouse which is predominantly found in Central Germany.
An Old Frisian farmhouse is a small unit farmhouse (Wohnstallhaus) that combined the farmer's living area and animals' stalls, and had limited space for storing harvest products. It was widely distributed across the North German Plain until the middle of the 17th century and was the forerunner of the Gulf house.
A Gulf house, also called a Gulf farmhouse (Gulfhof) or East Frisian house (Ostfriesenhaus), is a type of byre-dwelling that emerged in the 16th and 17th centuries in North Germany. It is timber-framed and built using post-and-beam construction. Initially Gulf houses appeared in the marshes, but later spread to the Frisian geest. They were distributed across the North Sea coastal regions from West Flanders through the Netherlands, East Frisia and Oldenburg as far as Schleswig-Holstein. This spread was interrupted by the Elbe-Weser Triangle which developed a type of Low German house instead, better known as the Low Saxon house.
The Geestharden house, also called the Cimbrian house, Schleswig house, Slesvig house or Southern Jutland house due to its geographical spread in Jutland, is one of three basic forms on which the many farmhouse types in the north German state of Schleswig-Holstein are based. The other two basic designs are the Gulf house and the Low German hall house. By far the best known variant of the Geestharden house is the Uthland-Frisian house, which is also referred to as the Frisian house (Friesenhaus).
The Uthland-Frisian house, a variation of the Geestharden house, is a type of farmhouse that, for centuries, dominated the North Frisian Uthlande, that is the North Frisian Islands, the Halligen and the marshlands of northwest Germany.
There are several types of Frisian houses in the Netherlands as well as in Germany.
A byre-dwelling is a farmhouse in which the living quarters are combined with the livestock and/or grain barn under the same roof. In the latter case, the building is also called a housebarn in American English.
The Black Forest house is a byre-dwelling that is found mainly in the central and southern parts of the Black Forest in southwestern Germany. It is characterised externally by a long hipped or half-hipped roof that descends to the height of the ground floor. This type of dwelling is suited to the conditions of the Black Forest: hillside locations, broad tracks, high levels of snowfall and heavy wind loading. Individual farms, such as the Hierahof near Kappel, which are still worked today, are over 400 years old. The Black Forest house is described by Dickinson as very characteristic of the Swabian farmstead type.
The Lorraine house or Lorraine farmhouse is a vernacular, agricultural house type found in Lorraine in France and the western part of the Saarland in Germany. It is a byre-dwelling, with the living and working quarters of a farming business combined under one roof. Lorraine houses developed after the devastating wars of the 17th century and took the place of individual scattered farmsteads.
The Bregenzerwälderhaus, Bregenzerwaldhaus or Wälderhaus is a house type from the Bregenz Forest region in Vorarlberg (Austria).
An outbuilding, sometimes called an accessory building or a dependency, is a building that is part of a residential or agricultural complex but detached from the main sleeping and eating areas. Outbuildings are generally used for some practical purpose, rather than decoration or purely for leisure. This article is limited to buildings that would typically serve one property, separate from community-scale structures such as gristmills, water towers, fire towers, or parish granaries. Outbuildings are typically detached from the main structure, so places like wine cellars, root cellars and cheese caves may or may not be termed outbuildings depending on their placement. A buttery, on the other hand, is never an outbuilding because by definition is it is integrated into the main structure.
{{cite episode}}: Missing or empty |series= (help)The longhouse or housebarn tradition is deeply ingrained in the shared cultural heritage of western Europe, Scandinavia, and the British Isles.