Stone Walls and Barns
'The soile about is very hilly and berith litle corne but noriseth
many bestes'

"Fieldbarns, sometimes known as fieldhouses or cowhouses, were a particular response to the problems
of overwintering of stock in the relatively harsh environment of the Dales.
The system revolved around grassland management.
The most important components are the botanically diverse hay meadows, but the system would not work
without the extensive areas of fell grazing.
In the spring, grass is encouraged to grow almost to seed in the hay meadows, where controlled grazing
and manuring allow more than twenty species of herb to flourish.
In July the grass is cut, traditionally using a scythe, and left to dry in the sun.
Drying is hastened by occasional turning, formerly by hand but now with tractor-drawn rakes.
When dry the hay is swept up and stored in the barns. Sledges were used for transport on some steeper
slopes as recently as the 1950s.
During the summer and autumn the cattle graze the upland pastures but by November they were brought
down and housed in the barns for winter.
Here they were visited by the farmer at least once, and sometimes as many as three times a day,
to be fed and watered and, where necessary, milked.
Six months later, in May, the cattle would be let out and the manure which had accumulated in the midden
and byre spread back on the surrounding meadows to fertilize the next grass crop.
Activity within the field barn therefore varied through the year."

 

"There are several thousand fieldbarns within the Dales, differing in size, style and plan,
generally being smaller on the poorer ground in the Upper Dales.
Nearly 10% of the fieldbarns in Upper Swaledale and Arkengarthdale
are for overwintering sheep rather than cattle.
The earliest datable surviving fieldbarns are in the Southern Dales, where several have
seventeenth-century datestones.
The earliest reliably dated barn identified in a comprehensive survey
of the 1,044 fieldbarns of Swaledale and Arkengarthdale
is a much altered and extended barn near Ivelet dated to 1713.

Most were probably built, or rebuilt, between 1750 and 1850."

"A well-built wall should last for a century or more, with little maintenance
other than the replacement of loose topstones.
The oldest walls, now only visible as low earth-covered banks, date back to the 
first or second millennium BC.
The alignment of these early walls has sometimes been preserved
by later boundaries and field systems.
Variations in the appearance of walls can be recognised - some relating to the 
underlying geology, others to the date of construction."

"Walls of the parliamentary enclosure period were often built according to a
detailed specification laid out in an Enclosure Award.
Most walls had to be completed within 12 months of an Award being executed.
These enclosure walls were often built with stone from shallow quarries beside the walls.
The majority of the arrow-straight field wall on the higher ground date
from this period."