Barns - simple on the outside

Last Wednesday at the Grey County Historical Society meeting, Jon Radojkovic shared his passion for barns in all their different designs. Depending on where you live, your picture of what a "typical barn" looks like will differ. With his slides, he showed us the different types of barns. One thing we learned that was although barns may look simple on the outside, they have an incredible design in the framework on the inside.

Barns, he said, are interesting historical buildings that are still like they were 100 or more years ago when they were built. In Grey County, the early barns were made from logs found on the property. As they outgrew the space, they built more structures. These were replaced by the timber-framed barn. In the late 1800s, barn raisings were social events when the neighbours gathered to build barns.

When Richard Bentham thanked Jon Radojkovic, Richard remarked that when his grandfather replaced the log barn with the utilitarian structure that still stands today on his land, it was the beginning of prosperity for the family.

We had a good turn out to the meeting. We now take a break from our general meetings until February.

photo courtesy Peter Chepil