Nineteenth-century barns in St. Mary's, Nova Scotia

Jack, Meghann E. (Meghann Elizabeth) (2018) Nineteenth-century barns in St. Mary's, Nova Scotia. Doctoral (PhD) thesis, Memorial University of Newfoundland.

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Abstract

This thesis examines adaptation and change in nineteenth-century timber frame barn building in St. Mary’s, a fertile river valley that extends through Pictou and Guysborough counties of Northeastern Nova Scotia. The study assesses how barn design evolved on the St. Mary’s landscape through the identification of a basic chronology of local building types: Phase I, The Early English Barn (1800 to mid-century) and Phase II, The Reform- Era Barn (mid-century to early 1900s). The study contextualizes St. Mary’s barns in their local geographic and economic settings, and within wider nineteenth-century culture. Barns ultimately reveal changing notions concerning agriculture and the farm in St. Mary’s. They address the interdependence of farm productivity and built form, and express the shift towards more intensified, market-oriented, and capitalistic farming strategies in the mid-to-late decades of the nineteenth century. Barns became larger through a process of extension as the century progressed, and incorporated new features such as manure cellars that enhanced agricultural productivity. The barns also speak to the ways ideological discourses, like reform and improvement, influenced architectural choice and how competing cultural attitudes toward traditional continuity and progressive change ultimately moderated the acceptance of new ideas towards farm buildings.

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