View of threshing barn from NW

Description View of threshing barn from NW

Date 8/8/1996

Collection Scottish Farm Buildings Survey

Catalogue Number C 78226 CN

Category Photographs and Off-line Digital Images

Copies SC 738964

Scope and Content Threshing barn from north-west, Tresness Farm, Sanday, Orkney Islands Tresness is a 19th-century stone steading on Sanday, one of the largest of the Orkney Islands. Sanday is low-lying and almost treeless with fertile soils and a temperate climate. Tresness ceased to be used as a working arable and livestock farm during the 1950s. This shows the two-storeyed threshing barn, with crowstepped gables. Beside it is the former straw barn, now roofless, which was attached to a byre. Behind can be seen the pyramidal roof of a horse engine house in which horses worked to power the original threshing machine before it was replaced by an oil engine. In the mid-19th century, agricultural improvement came to Orkney, sweeping away the old methods of subsistence farming. At that time, many new farm steadings were built to meet the needs of a developing farming industry. Greater mechanisation in the 20th century has made many of them redundant. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

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