SHED Some Light On the BARN

by Randall Branham

Title

SHED Some Light On the BARN

Artist

Randall Branham

Medium

Photograph - Photography /photo Art

Description

A gambrel roof is a usually symmetrical two-sided roof with two slopes on each side. The upper slope has less pitch while the lower slope is almost straight up giving more room on the barn floor for holding hay for the animals underneath.
Background: Due in large part to classic children's books such as The Big Red Barn , the image of a dairy barn to many, perhaps most, people, is a wood-framed, gambrel-roofed building painted red.

The gambrel, or two-slope gable roof, was introduced to barn construction in the post-Civil War period. By the late nineteenth century, eastern farmers began crowning their wood-framed barns with this roof. Also known as a curb roof, the double slope permitted a larger capacity hay loft without increasing the heights of the side walls of the barn. The Cultiavator and Country Gentleman discusssed the advantage of this roof type in an 1871 article:

Many farmers prefer the curb roof to their barns, as being more compact in shape, and possessing more capacity for the exterior covering employed. The greater height above the plates forms no objection where the pitching is done by the horse-fork...

The gambrel roof reached the height of its popularity in the early twentieth century.

Locations: Commonly found throughout the eastern and Midwestern dairy belt.

Uploaded

February 5th, 2014

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