The Barn & some of the displays in it

View of exterior of the Barn from 2nd floor of the mill. Photo taken Summer 2004.

The Barn on its original site at Streetly End, near Linton in Cambridgeshire. The photo was taken around 1987/88, not long before the Barn was purchased and dismantled.
As you can see it was in quite a bad state, but luckily the main structure was sound. These timbers were individually tagged and marked on a plan for the rebuilding.
Due to their poor condition the roof timbers, cladding boards and the brick base couldn't be re-used.

The Barn being reconstructed during late 1988.
Some of the timbers had to be trimmed of rotten ends or were replaced with timbers from another smaller barn we had aquired. As the barn had been standing for around 200 years the huge oak beams had become extremely hard - almost like concrete. We blunted several saws trimming the timbers.
As far as possible we used traditional methods for re-building the barn, such as using wooden dowels (or pegs) to join beams together.
A new roof was built using new timbers and old clay pantiles donated to the museum. The brick base was built using reclaimed bricks.
New "lap board" cladding was used as replacement for the rotten original boards.
The old timber frame is not for show, it is structural.

The Living Room

The Kitchen

The Laundry Room

The Privy. No heating, dim oil or parrafin lamp, wooden seat, newspaper for 'wiping', no flush. This toilet is only a display - the real museum toilets have heating, are well lit, have regular seats, proper toilet paper and they flush!

A selection of old Carpentry and Plumbing tools.

The Bedroom.

Close-up picture showing the junction of several major structural beams. You can also see the contrast between the original 18th Century timbers and the modern roof timbers.
The original timbers were, as far as possible, joined back together with dowels (large wooden pins) as seen in this photo. This is the same method that was used for joining the timbers when the barn was built 200 years ago.


More photos, showing the construction of the barn, will be added soon.

Photos & Video Clips This page will soon have video clips in addition to photos.

You will need the player to watch the clips.

If you don't have the player already you can download it for free on theApple - QuickTime - Download website (follow the instructions on that page)

Check the website regularly as the video clips will be added soon.

If you cannot see the brown menu buttons on the left hand side of this page click
here http://www.burwellmuseum.org.uk to see the Burwell Museum website properly.

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