Log Barns

I'm going to stick in a few very old barn shots tonight, some log barns we saw on our drive to Ottawa a few weeks ago.  And today I was checking part of the Bruce Trail and passed my favourite old barn foundation too.

We don't see many log barns in Ontario, but we spotted these ones along the backwoods road from the west toward Renfrew, on our way to Ottawa.  It's poor farmland, and has never become prosperous for farming, but the settlers did clear land and establish farms.  This is obviously an old house in front of the barn.

And just to the left of those was this log barn, looking like it was still used a bit, at least for storage.  Interesting to see all the square notched corners on these, though the logs haven't been squared.

A short distance down the road was this combination collection, the main barn being log, but attached outbuildings that were frame.

To the right was a small cabin that looked in quite good shape, with squared logs and chinking still in place, perhaps a former cabin..

But on the other side another barn had lost its roof entirely, and was looking in much worse condition.  We saw a number of other less photogenic log barns on our drive west from Renfrew, certainly more than I've ever seen around here.

But this favourite barn foundation is just down the road.  Perched on the slope of the Niagara Escarpment, it's not far off the Bruce Trail, and today it's buried in the woods.  The barn here was dismantled and moved, probably in the 1920's or 30's.

It's an open three-sided barn foundation; the 4th side faces east (our of the wind and into the morning sun), and would have been an open overhang on posts for the cattle to shelter under.  I'm always amazed at the workmanship of this barn, the big limestone and schist blocks on the outside all cut to square sides.

The inside was not nearly so carefully done, with field stones mortared in place.  But it has held up well for being built probably 140 years ago, and exposed to the rain, snow and frost for the past 70 years or so.

I tried a panorama shot on my iphone to show the open three-sided foundation, though you need to use your imagination as it does distort it a bit.  I could stand in the centre and look out and picture the view over the valley that must have been here in the 1930's, all open farm fields, though now it's all forest and no view at all.

Joining 

The Barn Collective