Historic Barns of Connecticut

Designations

n/a

Historic Significance

Architectural description:

This is a 1-story shed with a low-sloped gable roof. The main facade faces south and the ridgeline runs east-west. Whipple Road runs roughly north-south to a Y-juncture near the southeast corner of the site, at which point it veers west and dead ends facing the site and east gable end of the shed.

The main entry is an overhead garage door on the west side of the south-facing eave-facade. There is one two-pane vertical window to the west of the entry and two matching two-pane vertical windows to the east of the entry. There is a two pane horizontal sliding window at the center of the facade. The west-facing gable end has a two-pane vertical window high in the center of the gable attic. A former pass-through door near the south corner has been boarded up with plywood. An unmortared fieldstone foundation rising some four feet above grade extends from the north jamb of the door to the north corner of the gable end. There is a concrete block chimney with a clay chimney cap to the north of the gable attic.  At the north-facing eave side, the fieldstone foundation extends across and in front of the wall, interrupted near the east corner where there is a painted wood pass-through door. Above the foundation wall just to the right of the door is a two-pane horizontal window.  The east-facing gable end contains a two-pane vertical window high in the center of the gable attic. There is a painted, side-hinged wood panel pass-through door with three horizontal panes at top and three solid panels below. The unmortared fieldstone foundation extends from the north jamb of the door to about two feet past the northeast corner of the barn.

The south and east walls are unpainted clapboard, while the north and west walls are covered with unpainted plywood sheathing. The roof is covered with asphalt shingles and has slightly projecting eaves on the gable sides. The high stone walls appear to wrap the outside of the structure on three sides to approximately four feet above grade, suggesting the wall is the remaining foundation of an earlier, possibly larger barn. The wall is unmortared, irregularly coursed fieldstone throughout.

Historical significance:

A shed is typically a simple, single-story structure in a back garden or on an allotment that is used for storage, hobbies, or as a workshop. Sheds vary considerably in the complexity of their construction and their size, from small open-sided tin-roofed structures to large wood-framed sheds with shingled roofs, windows, and electrical outlets. Sheds used on farms or in industry can be large structures.

Field Notes

This farmstead was originally owned by the Whipple family. According to present owner, cape-style house dates to 1830. Owner also states that at the time of his purchasing the site, an old free-standing bank barn existed and was taken down including the stone foundation. He further stated that in the 1940's the farm commercially produced apples and strawberries. Present day "barn" formerly horse and sheep barn with interior stalls when this owner purchased the property. Lovely stonework may suggest foundation might have supported a different structure at one time. Small chicken coop behind this barn now used for storage. The Whipple, Crouch, Watrous families were all Rogerene Quaker families in one section of Ledyard and they all had farms as did many of the founding families of Ledyard...

Use (Historic)

• apple

Use (Present)

• unknown

Exterior Visible from Public Road?

Yes

Demolished

n/a

Location Integrity

Unknown

Related features

• Other
• Shed
• Stone Walls

Environment features

• Residential
• Scattered Buildings
• Woodland

Relationship to surroundings

The barn is due north of the house it is associated with. The major ridgelines of the c. 1830 (per owner; 1791 per appraiser card) house run parallel to the barn, running east to west. The house is a two-story, gable-roofed structure with Cape-style dormers, vinyl siding, asphalt shingle roof, attached deck and screen porch. In addition to the barn there is a former poultry house, located west and slightly north of the barn, its ridgeline also running east-west. The poultry house is a 1-story wood structure with clapboard walls and low-pitched gable asphalt shingle roof. There is a wood wellhouse with half-height clapboard walls and clapboard gable roof on centered wood posts, located between house and barn in line with the west end of the house and to the southwest of the barn. There is a third wood shed structure to the west and slightly south of the house. Whipple Road deadends at a break in a fieldstone wall to the east of the house and barn in the center of the property, turning into the unpaved driveway area which terminates at the north face of the house to the southeast of the barn. The property, which extends to the opposite side of Whipple Road contains numerous sections of fieldstone walls scattered throughout.The 3.3 acre site is surrounded by woodland with a sprinkling of houses mainly to the southeast.

Building Typology

• Other Shed

Materials

• Clapboard
• Concrete Block
• Fieldstone
• Plywood

Structural System

• Wood Frame

Roof materials

• Asphalt Shingle

Roof type

• Gable

Approximate Dimensions

814 square feet.

Date Compiled

02/12/2011

Compiled By

Meg Henry & T. Levine, reviewed by CT Trust

Sources

Field notes by Anne T. Roberts-Pierson, 12/10/2010.

Photographs by Anne T. Roberts-Pierson and Sue Billing, 10/26/2010.

Town of Ledyard GIS Viewer http://www.ledyardgis.com/detail.asp?parcelno=114-2620-12-R&PID=5219
(Parcel ID: 114-2620-12-R)

http://data.visionappraisal.com/LedyardCT/findpid.asp?iTable=pid&pid=5219

Aerial Mapping: http://www.bing.com/maps accessed 2/11/2011.

Sexton, James, PhD, Survey Narrative of the Connecticut Barn, Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation, Hamden, CT, 2005, http://www.connecticutbarns.org/history.

Visser, Thomas D., Field Guide to New England Barns and Farm Buildings, University Press of New England, 1997.