Feature Assessment: Built Environment / Field barns and outfarms
# Field barns and outfarms [we need to add the map in]
Overall vulnerability |
# Features assessed:
- Field barns and hay lofts
- Isolated field barns
- Outfarms
# Special qualities:
- Landscapes that tell a story of thousands of years of people, farming and industry
- Characteristic settlements with strong communities and traditions
# Feature description:
Field barns are individual buildings that are not associated with a yard, that provide crop storage or animal shelter for example, whereas outfarms are a building or buildings associated with a yard and often some distance from the farmstead.
In all areas of the PDNP field barns can be found in many fields, in the corners, on the edge, or sometimes in the middle. These small stone buildings usually provided haylofts above and accommodation for livestock below.
There are over 2,600 field barn and outfarm sites in the PDNP. Of these, 13 have listed building status, four of which were built before 1700.
# How vulnerable are field barns and outfarms?
Field barns and outfarms in the PDNP have been rated ‘moderate’ on our vulnerability scale. This score is due to a high sensitivity and exposure to climate change variables and a variable condition, but with a high adaptive capacity.
However, changes to farming practices have led to these buildings being subject to high rate of abandonment and loss. Changes to the economics of farming and farming practices due to climate change may drive modernisation of some historical farm buildings, altering the traditional character. Greater extremes of temperature may also be damaging to buildings exposed to the elements. Despite this the position in the PDNP is much better than the picture nationally assisted by the diverse location and layouts.
Overall potential impact rating | |
Overall adaptive capacity rating |
# Current condition
Outfarms and field barns have suffered high rates of loss. Due to their typically limited access and prominence in the landscape, changes to other forms of use can have a very high impact on their aesthetic and historical value and to the landscape as a whole.
Uncertainty over the future of upland farming, changing farming practices and the need to diversify mean that many upland farmsteads and field barns have become unused, or subject to another form of use. Unused buildings are more likely to fall into disrepair or dereliction.
Two-thirds of recorded examples in the PDNP are considered to be field barns comprising one or more detached buildings set within or on the edges of field. Of these, almost half retain some traditional farmstead character. Although many are marked as standing buildings on recent Ordnance Survey maps, it is likely that many of them suffer from some level of dereliction. By national standards this level of survival is high.
Just 13 of the over 2,600 field barn and outfarm sites recorded in the PDNP have listed building status. This very low level of designation is typical across England for this type of site and almost certainly represents under-designation, but further work is required to better understand the significance of the resource.