View of grain dresser and grain bruisers located on ground floor of threshing barn, Warsteer steading, Sanday

Description View of grain dresser and grain bruisers located on ground floor of threshing barn, Warsteer steading, Sanday

Date 10/8/1996

Collection Records of the Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Scotland (RCAHMS), Edinbu

Catalogue Number SC 739025

Category On-line Digital Images

Copy of D 3422

Scope and Content Grain dresser and grain bruisers located on ground floor of threshing barn, Warsetter Farm, Sanday, Orkney Islands At an altitude of some 60m above sea level, Warsetter is on the highest point of Sanday, one of the largest of the Orkney Islands. Sanday has fertile soils and a temperate climate favourable for an agricultural economy. Warsetter was a mixed arable farm with cattle and sheep. This shows the compact grain dresser unit and iron grain bruisers. Dressing improved grain for seed by removing weed seeds, chaff and thin grain, which would have been unlikely to grow. Bruising made grain more digestible and thus safer and more nutritious as feed for cattle. After threshing had separated the straw from the grain, it was bagged for storage. Dressing and bruising could be carried out as the need arose. Warsetter's grain dresser was fixed in place although originally designed as a portable hand-powered unit. Like the bruisers, it could also be flat belt driven. Source: RCAHMS contribution to SCRAN.

Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/collection/739025

File Format (TIF) Tagged Image File Format bitmap