An Exciting Day In The Field.

Hello fellow barn lovers, owners, and hunters, my name is Stephanie Lessard aka the "CT Trust Intern." I started working in mid-September as an intern for the Historic Barns project. On October 5th "Barn Hunter Charlotte" and I spent the day surveying historic barns in Chaplin, Connecticut. This was my first time in the field and hopefully not the last!

While driving through Chaplin, Charlotte and I had our eyes peeled for barns and always kept in mind to look for signs of agriculture in the area. While doing so we were able to find the local historic district. As we drove through, we almost felt like we had stepped back in time. Chaplin Street's historical character has been incredibly maintained! This was one of my favorite parts of the day!
One of the great things about this project is being able to explore the state I live in and, being from Fairfield, I had never spent time in the northeastern part before. This is a great time of year to hunt for barns too! For lunch we picnicked on the river beneath one of Chaplin's many bridges. The foliage was beautiful and many animals were out and about. By the end of our day, Charlotte and I photographed over 50 barns and had seen a lot of Chaplin. It was an overall ideal day for a barn hunter!

Travels of a Barn Hunter

I’m Charlotte Hitchcock writing today's post. I began working for the Historic Barns project as a volunteer barn-hunter in 2007. I “adopted” several towns and went out looking for the barns. It was a great way to learn more about the back roads of the state I’ve lived in for 35 years.

Many of my favorite barns are on the working farms.

Some of them are beautifully maintained – an impressive accomplishment considering their size! This New England dairy barn at Hayland Farm in Orange was built in 1910 with fire-proof brick and stone to replace an earlier barn that had burned. The farm delivered milk to New Haven and brought back garbage to feed the pigs.

Other barns show the wear and tear of their long history, with repairs and adaptations that are made with materials at hand. Here’s a bank barn in Coventry – the open fields run down to the banks of the Willimantic River.

Photographs:
Orange, Charlotte Hitchcock; Coventry, Julie Rosen