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CASTLETOWN, OMAGH, COUNTY TYRONE BT78 5QY, NORTHERN IRELAND, TEL +44 (0)28 8224 3292

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The Pennsylvania Barn was as essential a part of farm life as the dwelling house. It was usually a multipurpose building in which cows and draft animals were housed. Pennsylvania farmers followed the German practice of keeping cows under shelter for much of the year in the basement of the barn. On the floor above, two large 'mows' or lofts were used to store hay. The cantilevered forebay provided outside shelter for livestock when the weather was bad. The large, free, central area in the barn enabled wagons to be turned easily, and the heavy floor between the hay 'mows' was also used for threshing.

Pennsylvania Log Barn

The original barn which Thomas Mellon recalls in his autobiography was pulled down in the 1930s. The replica barn in the Folk Park is based on measurements of the foundations of the original and on the recollections of neighbours.

Around the Pennsylvania Farmhouse there is a series of traditional outbuildings which would have been found on most farms in nineteenth-century America.

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