Historic barns need your help

A wonderful barn in Franklin, CT. Photo © by Brenda Sullivan 2009

The Connecticut Trust for Historic Preservation has announced its newest project: a comprehensive survey of the state’s historic barns.

The group is inviting volunteers to help identify the location of the barns in their respective towns and/or perform “windshield surveys” (taking a photograph of a barn and noting the address, from the safety of a car).

The first target area is the Northeast corner of the state – including Ashford, Eastford, Chaplin, Stafford, Union and Willington.

A special presentation and workshop will be given at 6 p.m. on Aug. 6 at Knowlton Memorial Hall, 25 Pompey Hollow Road in Ashford.

The meeting will give a brief presentation on the history of the barn in Connecticut and then teach identification of barns by the type, use and construction technique.

The resource identification workshop will involve noting the approximate locations of the barns to be surveyed.

Then survey groups will be formed to cover areas of their town.

After a team (of at least two volunteers) has been assigned to an area, it will have four weeks to survey the area and enter the data in  the historic barn database, found at www.connecticutbarns.org.

The database will be the foundation for a statewide historic resource inventory, which will give barns in certain towns some level of protection. Currently, barns have almost no protections.

Survey information also will be used as the basis of State Register and National Register of Historic Places nominations.

The workshop will include data entry instruction, photography tips, standard vocabulary and safety issues.

Volunteers will be given a map of their designated area, a letter of purpose of the project to give/show to wary barn owners (explaining the program), a sample volunteer timesheet (required by the state), a booklet with pictures and vocabulary, a letter of commitment to sign and a tutorial on how to enter the info into the website database.

If interested, contact Todd Levine at barns@cttrust.org or call 203-562-6312.