Why are Traditional Farm Buildings Important?
The countryside of today and tomorrow is also the countryside of yesterday. The history of much of English agriculture is encapsulated in traditional farm buildings. Farmsteads and buildings are as important to the character of the countryside as the field patterns and boundaries associated with them in helping to create local identity and sense-of-place. The great diversity found in English farmsteads and buildings relates to the varying geology, farming practices, settlement patterns, land tenure and building techniques found across the country. Modern farming practices have led to major changes within many farmsteads. New machines require larger buildings, and animal welfare and hygiene require new standards in buildings. Economic pressures may mean there are limited resources available for maintaining increasingly redundant traditional farm buildings while amalgamation of farms has left some farmsteads totally redundant. This leaflet looks at how farmsteads and farm buildings refle
