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Farm buildings

Only cowsheds and barns have survived among the still existing examples. Homesteads probably had detached granaries and coach houses on their premises, which unfortunately have not survived.
One of the elements of a combined homestead always was a residential part and a farming part - cowshed. A passage to it always was situated in the hall of the residential part, opposite the black kitchen. A long corridor went right through the whole cowshed, dividing it into two parts. One side was destined for horses, the other for cows and pigs (il. 20, 70). The entry always was situated in both longer walls. The oldest known presentations show that the cowshed was also erected as a skeletal structure, covered with planks (il. 37). Although there is no direct evidence, certain elements indicate that such a structure has been applied in case of Kaniczki 4 and M±towskie Pastwiska 3088. A characteristic element was the internal row of posts which reinforced the attic used for storage of hay (il. 71)89. Of course, that part was also built as a tie-beam structure. Location of the manure depended on the type of homestead. If it was an angle-shaped homestead, or it only had a cowshed, the place for manure was situated behind the gable wall. In case of linear homesteads, it was situated at one of the longitudinal walls. At the end of the 19th century, wooden walls started to be replaced with walls made of brick. In that period, free-standing cowsheds made of brick started to appear.
Barns were always erected as planked, tie-beam structures. Irrespective of the type of homestead, at the wall adjacent to the cowshed, there was a mud floor closed on both sides with two-wing gates. A similar situation took place in case of angle-shaped homesteads. The oldest known wooden barn (1779) had two mud floors at the gable walls (il. 20, 70). The longitudinal walls of the mow were built of four posts fixed to the ground beam. The longitudinal stiffening consisted of a pair of spandrel beams placed on the whole length of the wall. On the posts, there was a rafter plate, on which, on the extreme posts, truss beams were laid. From here, rafters connected intermittently with the rafter plate or the girt. Both elements were additionally connected with posts by way of angle braces. In case of the truss of the extreme walls, the angle braces before and after the mud floor were doubled. Spandrel beams connected with posts with a tenon often fixed with two pegs. That oldest skeletal structure had a space between spandrel beams filled with (peca ?) wound on longitudinally fixed perches. This solution has no analogy, although it is known from the literature (il. 72)90. Another barn, in the angle-shaped homestead Barcice 20 of 1869 has a similar solution of the skeletal walls (il. 73), while the second floor above the girt has been additionally reinforced with a two-post longitudinal frame. At the end of the century, barns tended to be bigger and bigger. Solutions typical for the framing of that period were used in them, suech as, for example, roof tie.






88 In case of M±towskie Pastwiska those were preserved middle posts with angle braces. A similar arrangement has been preserved in the barn.
89 H. Wernicke, Bauernhauser..., s. 6.
90 Such a filling of the spaces in the skeletal structure of barn were not only known among partitions of mows, but also among skeletal walls themselves. See: W. Łęga, op. cit., p. 40.





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