Barn Survey: Waterford Historical Starts New Project

At right, speaker Joshua Phillips.

Attentive audience!

Joshua Phillips brought his Vermont barn expertise to the October meeting of the Waterford Historical group, and taught about English-style barns, bank barns, roofs, why round barns were designed, and much more. Handouts on barn details and terminology and a dynamic "PowerPoint" slide show kept us all eager and the conversations afterward were full of enthusiasm.

So -- it looks like our Nov 28 meeting (at the Davies Memorial Library, 6 pm) will focus on who's going to survey which structures (or areas), and setting some priorities. Mr. Phillips suggested that November and April are the best months for taking unobstructed photos of all four sides of a barn or other farm-related building (yes, sugarhouses count!).

For copies of the handouts, look here:

http://www.uvm.edu/~barn/get_ready.html

And if you can't be at the November meeting but you're interested in working on this, or want to suggest some agricultural buildings in town, please do leave a message at the library and one of us will get back to you.

Oh yes -- why do this? Because it will help preserve our barns! The Barn Census is step one in making sure that state and private preservation groups pay attention, and direct some funds, toward the fascinating structures and history that we have right here.