The Country Barn, Northumberland

We came across this barn on our way from the coast up to Alnwick. The whole of the inside has been converted to a shop and restaurant.

Farms in the north were much more likely to adopt new technologies than those in the south. This was partly due to the poorer climate and partly due to the easy access to coal as a fuel for the steam engine. Evidence of this can be seen here in the chimney to the boiler house. Like the earlier horse-gins, this was used to drive the machinery to process the grain. As in many northern barns, there was also an upper hay-loft to allow animals to be kept in byres below.