New England Connected Farm
The typical New England connected farm complex consists of the "big house", which acts as the standard family living quarters, connected to the Big House is the "little house", which contains the kitchen area. Next to it is the "back house", which was traditionally a carriage or wagon house. Connected to the back house is a standard livestock barn. This style was banned in many areas due to fire concerns, but the bans were lifted in the 18th century. Originally, all four buildings would have parallel roof lines. In later years (post-1800), when kitchens became more of a room of the house, the Little House became an ell off the Big House.
Connected barns describe the type of barn integrated into other structures on a farm in the New England region of the United States. The New England connected farmstead, as many architectural historians have termed the style, consisted of numerous farm buildings all connected into one continuous structure. Houses, ells, sheds, barns, and other outbuildings all were combined to form one long building. Architectural styles varied, from Greek to Gothic Revival. The connected farmstead is unique in not only its connection of house to barn to shed, and so forth, but also because the architectural style of the home was often used on the other structures, including barns, connected to it.
Noted historian and architect Thomas Hubka commented in his 1984 book, Big House, Little House, Back House, Barn, that:
"those who built connected farms changed their farms by extending the architectural style and order of the house to their barns. This was a truly radical development by New England farmers, and it is this characteristic, more than that of house and barn connection itself, that is one of the unique aspects of New England connected farm architecture."
These types of structures were common throughout New England during the 19th century, but were found in most frequently in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Massachusetts .
Read more about this topic: Connected Farm
Famous quotes containing the words england, connected and/or farm:
“I know no more affecting lesson to our busy, plotting New England brains, than to go into one of our factories with which we have lined all the watercourses in the States. A man hardly knows how much he is a machine, until he begins to make telegraph, loom, press, and locomotive, in his own image.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“Painting gives the object itself; poetry what it implies. Painting embodies what a thing contains in itself; poetry suggests what exists out of it, in any manner connected with it.”
—William Hazlitt (1778–1830)
“Wind goes from farm to farm in wave on wave,
But carries no cry of what is hoped to be.
There may be little or much beyond the grave,
But the strong are saying nothing until they see.”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)