UK Barn Conversion
UK Barn Conversion Structures
The great thing about UK barn conversion structures is the amazing variety of types of buildings that makes UK barn conversions so attractive. The barns available were firstly utility buildings, usually constructed using whatever local materials were cheapest or most readily to hand. UK barn conversion material can be timber and weatherboard, say in Surrey and local stone in the Cotswolds. In Sussex you'll find some built of brick in-filled with flint and in East Anglia many are built of lump clay. UK barns were designed according to farm function - there are classic barns that were used for threshing and winnowing and featured large doors for the delivery of the grain by the cartload, having a raised floor where the wheat was separated from the chaff.
The barns were designed to allow plenty of light in through the huge doors and used still obvious ventilation openings to ensure ample circulation of air. The doors were angled outwards to create the through draft necessary for the winnowing.
There are however so many variations of the barn - in upland areas for instance, small field barns were used to shelter livestock from the weather and vast tithe barns were used for storing the church's ten per cent tax on parishioners.
According to the author of a splendid book on UK barn conversion - Dominic Bradbury, the various UK barn forms can be placed in three basic structural types: The box construction: In this type, the main walls are used to support the whole barn. Post & truss, where the internal framework supports the whole roof weight with posts meeting the supporting roof beams and cross frames, where a timber framed barn version consists of a number of 'A' frames that are used to support the roof.
