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This is my 100^th post. I didn’t quite make the ton for my blog’s first birthday at the beginning of last week. However, I thought I would celebrate the occasion by telling you a bit about our barn, illustrated with some before and after photos.

We bought the barn, which is only 30m from our front door, eight years ago. It had been for sale in a desultory way ever since we had first moved here in 1997, and probably before. In 2003, things started to hot up and potential purchasers turned up, all of them interested in converting it into a house. I decided I couldn’t tolerate another dwelling so close, so we stepped in fast.

With the barn, we acquired a heap of stones, formerly a house, a field and a small wood. The latter is my pride and joy: I cleared it personally, by hand, turning it from an impenetrable thicket into managed woodland. It took me 18 months. I left a wild strip for the birds and animals, conscious that I was depriving them of their habitat.

The barn itself had been neglected for many years and was used only for storing a trailer and a lot of superannuated hay. Part of the roof at one end had gone and we quickly had it fixed; had it gone unrepaired much longer, the rest would have followed. The photo below shows the front, with trees growing right up against the walls. However, it also shows that the walls are as straight as a die and have not budged since it was built.

The back of the barn was even worse, as you can see below. There was a small well in very poor condition, which was virtually inaccessible because of the brambles. A citerne for catching water was at the other end, in even worse condition with the stonework crumbling into the large, circular chamber below.

Inside the barn, however, the beautiful charpente (woodwork) remained much as it was when the barn was first built. The building has been re-roofed on at least one occasion and the laths were probably replaced. But the original beams and joinery remain.

We were unsure of the barn’s age and our neighbours, from whom we bought it, could only guess like us that it dated from the 18^th century. Looking up at the keystone above the main entrance, Madame F said she could detect something written in the stone, but everyone pooh-poohed the idea. We all thought the marks were simply made when the stone was dressed. Later on one evening, when the setting sun fell on the stone, we realised that she had been right. There is a date incised into the stone – 1734. It could possibly be 1754, but having examined it closely, we think it’s probably a 3.

This, then, cleared up the mystery of its age. One has to be prudent in dating old buildings around here: their builders used to pillage the ruins of older houses for stone and if there was a date on a stone already they sometimes placed it above a doorway. We believe, though, that these crudely scratched hieroglyphics do actually represent the date the barn was built.

We have not found a date on our house, although we have reason to believe that a house has stood on this spot for centuries, although probably not the present building, which is 18^th-century. Our neighbour told us that it was common for farmers to build the barn first to house the animals before starting on their own dwellings. They bunked up in the straw at night.

In the eight years since we have owned the barn, we have slowly restored it to its former magnificence. And it is a glorious building. We have mended and re-hung the original oak doors, one of which was simply lying on its side against a wall. That was a difficult job, since they are incredibly heavy, but it was made easier by our friend Claude and his electric hoist.

We have also cleared the back of the barn, repaired the well (12.5 metres deep) and installed a pump for watering. The Statistics Freak rebuilt the top of the citerne and re-roofed it last year (on the right of the picture), installing a pump in there too. We also had removed what remained of the heap of stones. For several years, this provided us with some excellent dressed stone as well as filler stones for the dry stone walls that surround our property. It was mainly rubble after that. Eight lorry loads of debris were taken away on the hottest day of last summer (39ºC in the shade).

I was a little sad that we have obliterated all trace of what was once someone’s house. However, it had been unrecognisable as such for many years and must have fallen down long ago. We have been pleased to find evidence of the occupants, including a fork and spoon, the key to the door (the door had long since crumbled) and various bits of agricultural implements.

Around the barn, we have also found a handful of strange metal objects with neat holes along one corner.

After some reflection, we realised that these were fers à vache or à boeuf (cow or ox shoes), like horseshoes. The obvious difference is that the bovine hoof is cloven and each side of the hoof needed its own shoe. However, the interior part is smaller than the exterior, so a pair of cow shoes was of unequal sizes. Long before horses were used for drawing ploughs or carts, the farmers used oxen or cows. They needed to be shod to protect their hooves on the stony tracks.

I have read that a set of shoes lasted around three months, depending on how much work the animal did. Shoeing a cow or ox was apparently a more difficult and skilled job than shoeing a horse. It seems likely that the blacksmiths travelled from farm to farm to replace worn and lost shoes. I would be pleased to hear from anyone who has more information about how they worked.

As for the barn, it will remain just that as long as we own it. I feel it would be a pity to turn an example of local patrimoine (cultural heritage) into a house. Barns like this are becoming increasingly rare as they are either converted or fall down. The thought of doing gîtes makes my blood run cold. And, if we converted it, where would we store all our junk?

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