A farmstead where mostly detached buildings have developed around one side of an open cattle yard.
Loose Courtyard (One Sided)
Historic England
A building for the drying of corn after harvesting, with a slatted drying floor set above a kiln.
Corn Drying Kiln
Grain Drying Kiln
A tower for the airtight storage of freshly cut grass and its conversion into silage.
Silage Tower
Farmhouse
The main dwelling house of a farm, it can be either detatched from or attached to the working buildings. The house can either share the main elevation with the working buildings or may face in a different direction, commonly into a garden area.
A building in which hops are dried and stored. Known as an Oasthouse or Oast in south east England.
Oast House
Hop Kiln
Cattle Housing
A structure providing secure housing for cattle. Use more specific type where known.
A building for the winter housing of yearling sheep, which can resemble a field barn or shelter shed.
Hogg House
Farmsteads Thesaurus
Thesaurus for indexing different types of farmsteads, related buildings, areas and layouts. This thesaurus does not contain any additional terminology than that held in Monument Type.
Fold Yard
A yard for cattle that has access to working buildings, usually cow houses, shelter sheds and barns.
Cattle Yard
A farmstead with multiple yards which are grouped together and regularly arranged (other than the defined E, F, H, T or Z plans). The yards may relate to one or more buildings or ranges which may be of either loose courtyard or regular courtyard form.
Regular Courtyard Multi Yard
Mass produced iron framed shed usually clad in metal sheeting.
Portal Framed Shed
Regular courtyard farmsteads where the buildings are arranged as an E-shaped plan around two cattle yards. Cattle housing and stabling typically extend as three ranges from the longer main range which includes a barn or mixing house.
Regular Courtyard E Plan
Distinct from farmsteads, they either have no defined plan type or they fall into the categories of the smallest plan types. They are usually situated within areas of enclosure of common land and associated with areas of mining or quarrying.
Smallholding
A barn usually containing a single, central threshing floor and bays for storing the threshed corn.
Threshing Barn
An outlying farm or estate, usually belonging to a medieval religious order or feudal lord. Specifically related to core buildings and structures associated with monastic land holding. Use specific term where known.
Grange
Goose House
A structure providing secure housing for geese.
A farmstead where the house and working buildings are attached and in-line. Can include Bastles, Longhouses and Laithe houses.
Linear Plan
Regular Courtyard T Plan
Regular courtyard farmsteads where the buildings are arranged as two ranges at right angles to each other.
Housing for sheep, in the form of a shelter shed with low eaves (very difficult to identify, but usually detached from the main farmyard and facing a detached series of yards).
Sheep House
Sheep Cote
Bercerie
A building used for an agricultural and/or subsistence purpose. Use more specific type where known.
Agricultural Building
Outfarm
A complex of buildings set within the fields away from the main farmstead, usually including a barn for corn and/or hay and cattle housing set around a yard.
Plan Types
House Over Byre
Byre House
Bastle House
Bastel House
Bastle (Non Defensive)
Byre Dwelling
A stone building with external access to the domestic accommodation via a permanent stair. The ground floor is normally used as a byre in rural contexts, but in an urban setting it may be intended for one of a number of other non domestic uses.
Waggon Shed
Cart Shed
A building used for housing and protecting from the weather carts, waggons and farm implements, often open-fronted.
A barn in which a central space is separated from side aisles by posts and braces.
Aisled Barn
An iron framed, open fronted building for the shelter of hay or corn. They typically date from the late 19th to the mid 20th centuries.
Dutch Barn
A building, usually part of another building and located close to the cattle yard, where grain, cake and roots for animals would be prepared for animal feed.
Mixing House
A farmstead where mostly detached buildings have developed around one or more sides of an open cattle yard.
Loose Courtyard Plan
A furnace or oven for burning, baking or drying. Use specific type where known.
Kiln
The homestead of a farm consisting of a farmhouse and working farm buildings, with yards, other working areas and usually a garden to the house.
Farmstead
A threshing barn which also houses farm animals and sometimes used to store grain, house carts and other functions.
Combination Barn
Well House
A building over a well housing machinery for raising the water.
Manorial Farm
A medieval high status farmstead, acting as the centre of the estate, directly controlled by the lord and used for the benefit of his household and dependents.
Demesne Farm
Courtyard Plan
A farmstead where the working buildings are arranged around a yard.
Vaccary
A monastic cattle farm with associated buildings, paddocks and pastures. A stock farm for cattle. Most vaccaries are of 12th or 13th century origin, and were built for ecclesiastical or lay lords. They are concentrated in the Pennines.
Agricultural Complexes And Buildings
Room, usually part of another building and located close to the cattle yard, for storing and preparing roots and other animal feed.
Root And Fodder Store
A structure providing shelter for animals. Use more specific type where known.
Animal Housing
Regular courtyard farmsteads where the buildings are arranged as two linked ranges to create an L-shape. They can comprise a barn and an attached shelter shed to a cattle yard or an interlinked cattle housing and fodder range.
Regular Courtyard L Plan
Toft
The footprint of a house, sometimes raised or marked by earthworks where the house has been removed.
Stabling
A structure providing secure housing for horses.
Bastle (Defensive)
A stone building with thick outer walls and small infrequent windows whose entrance and any internal stairs are capable of defence. Many contain stone vaulted ground floor ceilings although in some instances substantial timbers have been used.
Regular Courtyard Plan
A farmstead where the working buildings are carefully planned as linked ranges and are focused around one or more working yards. They often result from a single phase of building.
Regular courtyard farmsteads where the buildings are arranged around all four sides of the yard.
Regular Courtyard Full Plan
Staddle Barn
A threshing barn, usually timber framed which is raised on staddle stones.
Linhay
A two storied and open fronted structure comprising a cattle or cart shelter on the ground floor with a hayloft above. Most common in South West England.
A linear range of one construction comprising a farmhouse with attached (but not internally linked) to its working buildings, usually with a large door to the barn for corn or hay and smaller doors to the cowhouse and/or stable.
Laithe House
Barn
A building for the storage and processing of grain crops and for housing straw, farm equipment and occasionally livestock and their fodder. Use more specific type where known.
Byre
A building in which cattle are housed, normally tethered in stalls.
Cow House
Calf House
Hovel
Shippon
Cattle Shed
Sheep Yard
A yard for sheep that typically projects from the farmstead.
Poultry Housing
Structures providing secure housing for poultry. Use more specific type where known.
Fowl House
Long House
Longhouse
A building that housed humans and cattle under one roof, with a shared entrance providing access to the cattle housing (usually downslope) and the dwelling area.
Cider House
A building, or part of a building, for the milling and pressing of cider apples to produce cider (or pears for perry) and for storing the drink in barrels.
Ciderhouse
A farmstead where mostly detached buildings have developed around three sides of an open cattle yard.
Loose Courtyard (Three Sided)
Tower House
Peel Tower
A fortified tower house of between two and four storeys, mostly 14th - 16th century in date and concentrated in the northern border counties.
Pele Tower
A low ceilinged building for the malting of barley before brewing, specifically for the germination of the crop on malting floors and then drying in a kiln.
Maltings
Wheel House
Horse Engine House
A round or polygonal building containing a horse engine used for powering threshing, and other, machinery; typically found projecting from barns.
Boiling House
A building, or part of a building for the boiling and preparation of animal feed, usually attached to pigsties.
A farmstead where the farmhouse and working buildings are attached and in-line. They can comprise the extension of linear farmsteads.
L Plan (House Attached)
Regular Courtyard F Plan
Regular courtyard farmsteads where the buildings are arranged as an F-shaped plan around one or two cattle yards. Cattle housing and stabling typically extend as two ranges from the longer main range which includes a barn or mixing house.
A house for farm workers and their families.
Workers House
Chicken House
Hen Cote
Hen House
A structure providing secure housing for Hens.
Covered Yard
A covered yard for the shelter of cattle that is attached to a building, first used on planned and model farms of the 1850s to 1870s. It became increasingly common from the 1880s to roof over former open yards with timber or metal-framed superstructures.
Stable
A building, or part of a building, for housing horses or working oxen, storing and maintaining their tackle and sometimes housing farm workers.
Regular courtyard farmsteads where the buildings are arranged around three sides of a yard which is open to one side.
Regular Courtyard U Plan
Shielding
Summer pasture for cattle or sheep with associated temporary huts for domestic or agricultural use.
Shieling
Sheiling
Shealing
Shiel
Loose Box
A separate compartment, with its own door, for fattening cattle and sometimes housing bulls.
Poultiggery
A building combining a pigsty at ground level with a poultry house in a loft over.
A small roofed shelter for cattle without tethering point or stalls, but with a small yard attached. Mostly found in North East England.
Hemmel
Dispersed Plan
A farmstead where the buildings and yards are loosely arranged, with no focal yard. Use more specific type where known.
A farmstead where mostly detached buildings have developed around four sides of an open cattle yard.
Loose Courtyard (Four Sided)
Horse Yard
A yard for horses that is attached to a stable range.
An enclosed piece of land adjoining a house.
Croft
Chaff House
An area within a building (usually the barn or stable) for storing husks from the grain crop (chaff) for animal feed after it has been threshed and winnowed in the barn.
A building, or part of a building, for housing draught oxen.
Ox House
Rams Pen
Cubicles for housing rams, resembling pigsties with their own yard but slightly larger.
Yard
An area enabling general movement and access to the farmhouse and working buildings and for livestock, the storage of harvested crops, timber and other products.
Dairy
A detached building, or more often a room within the farmhouse used for the cool storage of milk and making it into butter and/or cheese.
A building, or first-floor room in a building, for the dry and secure storage of grain after it has been threshed and winnowed
Granary
Agricultural Complex
Loose Courtyard (Two Sided)
A farmstead where mostly detached buildings have developed around two sides of an open cattle yard.
Rick Yard
Stack Yard
A farmyard or enclosure for the seasonal storage of stacks of hay, corn, peas etc.
Dovecote
A building or part of a building used to house doves and pigeons, usually placed at a height above the ground, with openings and provision inside for roosting and breeding.
Field Barn
An isolated barn, cow house or shelter shed with a hayloft. Typically found in areas where farmsteads and fields were sited at a long distance from each other.
Row Plan
A farmstead where the main range of working buildings are attached in-line and form a long row often facing a series of yards.
Pigsty
Piggery
An enclosure for pigs that includes a covered pen and yard.
Hay Barn
An open-fronted building for the dry and well-ventilated storage of hay.
Pig Housing
A structure providing secure housing for pigs. Use more specific type where known.
Shed
A slight structure, or a modern wide span farm building, built for shelter or storage or for use as a workshop, either attached as a lean-to to a permanent building or separate. Use more specific type where known.
An uncommon form of a regular courtyard farmstead where the buildings are arranged in a Z-shaped form.
Regular Courtyard Z Plan
A multi-purpose, two-storey barn, built on a hillside with entrances at both levels to a first floor threshing barn and ground floor animal housing.
Bank Barn
Mill
A factory used for processing raw materials, such as corn to flour.
Bastle
A stone building with stone flagged domestic accommodation above non-domestic ground floor accommodation, typically a byre. The domestic accommodation is accessible via an external ladder or stair, the non-domestic ground floor having a separate entrance.
Silage Clamp
An airtight container for the storage of freshly cut grass and its conversion into silage.
A farmstead, often of linear plan, where the working buildings are placed opposite and parallel to the house and attached working buildings with a relatively narrow space between.
Parallel Plan
A dispersed farmstead where buildings are arranged around scattered yards which can be loose or regular in their form.
Dispersed Multi Yard Plan
Regular Courtyard H Plan
Regular courtyard farmsteads where the buildings are arranged as an H-shaped plan, commonly with cattle housing to two or more cattle yards.
An open fronted building facing onto a yard used for the sheltering of cattle.
Shelter Shed
A dispersed farmstead where buildings and yards (regular or loose courtyard in their form) are sited alongside a routeway
Dispersed Driftway Plan
A dispersed farmstead where the farm buildings and farmhouse are loosely grouped together within the boundary of the farmstead.
Dispersed Cluster Plan