Tuesday 22 September 2015

Medieval Hay Barrack

A structure with a movable roof for storing loose hay.

Easy to build, ram 4 Posts into the ground and attach a thatch or shingle Roof that can be moved up and down. Low maintenance, the Posts could last up to 40 years, the thatch would Need changing occasionally.

Widespread in northern Europe in medieval times but  not so common These days.
Thought to have originated in Holland, The oldest written source  is from 1022.
Although they are not common These days, they are coming back, especially in Holland where they are called Hooiberg (Hay mountains)  and a society  (the Hooiberg Museum) is promoting thier use.
 
 

Like all things that look simple..they aren´t. It´s not just a case of bunging loose hay under the Roof and Job done. There´s a lot of specialised knowledge needed to stack and care for the hay as told by the ;
Dutch Barn Preservation Society
 Hay barrack in the Velislai biblia picta (Velislaus Bible or Velislav's Bible )  1325–1349. 

14 comments:

  1. Another great build and a totally new building for me, fascination stuff Paul.

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  2. Another splendid building...and post!

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  3. Nice.

    I can confirm that I have built a similar structure - it should be appearing in press quite soon.

    I had never heard it called a Hay Barrack before?

    Tony

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    1. Thanks.
      I look foward to your Version.
      The Name "hay barrack" I only came across it after finding a site called hay in art ( http://www.hayinart.com/003021.html ) where they are called soprons or aboras. I think the Name (Barrack) is an anglisized Version of the French Name for them "Baraque à foin"

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  4. You are quite the farmer, Mr. Bods.

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  5. Nice little piece of backround set-dressing - it's funney synergy or co-incidence being what they are;

    I was only thinking the other day looking at some war-games show report with lots of wonderful WWII set-ups how none of them had 'Dutch barns'...when I was a kid there were still plenty around, when the kids started coming out of the new-towns and torching them for a laugh in the 70's they all got cut-up for scrap (I help my cousin Richard do our last one in '84), but in WWII they were everywhere...and it would be an easy laser-cut kit (they were basically 6,8, 10 or 12 stanchions with angle-iron trusses) with a sheet of plasti-card wriggly-tin for the roof?

    And a Dutch barn half-filled with hay or straw is a lovely thing for hiding a tank or dreaded '88 in!

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    1. The coincidences go further. I was reading just today that a big Hay barrack (or Hooiberg) was repaired a couple of years back after being bombed in WWII..they reckoned it could be hiding a tank.
      Constructing a modern dutchbarn for wargaming would be a doddle.

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  6. Never seen anything like this before, great work ol' chap!

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  7. A great idea, elevating roof.
    :) Everything from the Dutch ...

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  8. Now that is really really cool!

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  9. Just caught up with the blog and it was a real delight to see all of the projects you have finished. I really enjoy seeing your builds and reference material. I hope to do a better job of keeping up.

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    1. Thanks Sean. For me, "Real" life gets in the way of looking around and keeping up on the web..so I´m guilty of not keeping up as well.

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  10. I've still NOT received any e-mails.

    Tony
    dampfpanzerwagon(at)yahoo(dot)co(dot(uk)

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