The barn : the lives, landscape and lost ways of an old Yorkshire farm

A revelatory uncovering of a vanished agricultural way of life by bestselling nature writer Sally Coulthard. 'A gem of a book' Country Smallholding 'Engaging and filled with gentle humour and fascinating facts' Get History 'Shows us the beauty and rich history of everyday things' Country Walking Magazine Across the foldyard from Sally Coulthard's North Yorkshire farmhouse, stands an old stone barn. When she discovered a set of witches' marks on one of its internal walls, she began to wonder about the lives of the people who had once lived and worked there. Both the intimate story of a building and its hinterland, and a wider social history, The Barn explores a hidden corner of rural Britain that has witnessed remarkable changes. From the eighteenth-century Enclosures to the Second World War, the fortunes of the Barn have been blown, like a leaf in a gale, by the unstoppable forces of new agriculture and industry. Seismic shifts in almost every area of society were all played out here in miniature – against a backdrop of scattered limestone villages and the softly rolling Howardian Hills. The astonishing, socio-historic uncovering of a vanished agricultural way of life by best-selling nature writer Sally Coulthard. Dominating the farmyard of the house where Sally Coulthard and her husband live in the gentle Howardian Hills of North Yorkshire is a large, stone-built barn. When Sally discovered a set of ancient 'witch-marks' scratched into the wall of the barn, she became intrigued by the sturdy old building and the story behind it. The Barn is hence a socio-historic exploration of a small patch of Yorkshire countryside - hidden, insignificant, invisible to the rest of the world - which has experienced extraordinary changes. From the last of the enclosures to the boom days of Victorian high farming, the fortunes of the barn have been repeatedly upturned by the unstoppable forces of agriculture and industry. Medicine, transport, education, farming, women's roles, war, technology - every facet of society was played out, in miniature, here. The walls of the barn are a palimpsest, written onto - and now about - by three hundred years of history.