Saving Ontario’s Old Barns

Friday, October 30, 2026

Digital study documents farm buildings before they disappear

By Mary Loggan

Across Ontario, old barns are disappearing as farms evolve, development expands, and aging structures become harder to maintain.

When they come down, the history tied to those buildings — including the farm families who used them, how they were built, and the agricultural practices they supported —can disappear with them.

Ontario Barn Preservation (OBP) is working to preserve that part of history through its Your Old Barn Study, or YOBS.

The project invites owners to document their barns with photographs, measurements, building details and family stories, creating a digital record of structures that may not remain on the landscape. The study is being conducted in collaboration with the University of Guelph.

Better Farming recently connected with Hugh Fraser, president of OBP, to discuss how the study is helping preserve Ontario’s agricultural history before it is lost.

Creating a record

“Every single barn is unique. Every single barn has got a story to tell,” Fraser says.

“Sometimes when the wrecking ball comes, or an area is developed, this is one way to save that barn in a digital form for future use.”

Fraser says Ontario has no complete inventory of the province’s remaining old barns.

OBP launched YOBS during the COVID-19 pandemic after recognizing that paper-based inventories made it difficult to compare information across barns.

The online questionnaire allows participants to identify the barn type, age, dimensions, roofline, and building features, and then add photographs and stories.

“We thought, ‘Why don’t we take it straight to some kind of information- gathering device online where people could enter their own barns?’”

The study involves owners gathering information in the barn first, using a camera, flashlight, notebook and measuring tape.

“From photos, you can learn an awful lot about a barn, even if you don’t have anything else.

“We show people how to take an end view of their barn, a side view of their barn and an isometric 3D look at their barn.”

About 225 barns have been entered so far.

OBP is transferring the information from its large spreadsheet into a searchable database with help from a University of Guelph student.

The eventual database could help identify barn types, ages and regional differences across Ontario.

“We could say, ‘Tell me how many gable barns there are in Blenheim Township, in Oxford County, on the First Concession, that are older than 1850,’” Fraser says.

“We will be able to do that.”

Why ag history matters

The first 115 barns entered in YOBS were built mostly between 1850 and 1900, according to OBP.

Many are still part of working farms, and owners have contributed current and historic photographs, along with stories and anecdotes.

Fraser says a larger database could help trace settlement, farm development and regional building styles. It can also capture farm structures before their history is lost.

“Barns today are functionally obsolete before they are structurally obsolete,” Fraser notes.

“Barns built in the 1800s were built for 100 years because nobody ever thought things would change.”

Older barns can contain materials and workmanship that cannot be reproduced. Fraser points to swingbeam barns with large old-growth timbers and mortise-and-tenon joints.

“When you find a big timber that’s 18 inches deep, I call it like finding a dinosaur bone or a mammoth tusk.

“They just don’t exist anymore, and they never will exist again.”

A closer look can also uncover a barn’s more personal history.

“I’ll go into a barn three times, and I see something different every time,” Fraser says.

“I’ve had a farmer walk by somebody’s name scratched on the wall for 50 years and never see it.”

Family farm recovered

For dairy farmer Tim May, YOBS helped preserve a family farmstead that had already disappeared.

May’s family once farmed in Hornby, in Halton Region. His parents later moved to Eramosa Township, but development overtook the Hornby farm. The original farm is now home to shopping malls.

May has long collected agricultural artifacts, old tools and books. But after his parents died, his interest in the former farm took on a more personal meaning.

“I kind of started longing, ‘I wish I had asked more questions about the old homestead,’” May says.

“I’d heard my dad tell stories, and his old neighbours would come up to visit him and tell me stories of back in Hornby and the farm and my grandpa.”

May never knew his paternal grandfather. While sorting through family belongings, he found photographs of relatives, the former home and the old barn — images he had not seen before.

He also had a drawing his father made shortly before his death, after May asked him to describe the barn’s interior.

“He took a piece of paper and sketched out all the stalls — horse stalls, calf pens and where the manure track was.

“I couldn’t believe how he could remember all of that from so long ago.”

May posted a historic farm photograph online and tagged OBP. Fraser reached out and proposed reconstructing the lost barn using the images, the sketch and known dimensions from structures in the photographs.

A cement silo helped Fraser determine scale, while a chicken brooder house that May’s father moved from Hornby to the family’s later farm offered another connection to the original property.

“Hugh knew how far apart the concrete pour lines on the silo were.

“From that, he got all the dimensions of the silo and the barn, and my dad knew how it was built on the inside,” May notes.

The reconstruction gave May a clearer picture of the farm his family left behind, while preserving it for others who may want to learn about the community’s agricultural past.

“It’s a little snapshot of family history that’s going to stay with my family and with the community and the county.

“Everyone can go back and see a little bit of history.

“It’s gone, but it’s not really gone because it’s there virtually.”

Preserving for the future

YOBS does not require owners to restore or retain a barn.

The organization recognizes that some buildings are unsafe, no longer practical, or beyond repair.

“We can’t save every barn, and nor should we save every barn,” Fraser points out.

“It’s impossible to save every barn. We’d love to, but it’s impossible.”

Instead, the project gives owners a way to preserve the barn’s history when physical preservation is no longer possible.

“We believe it’s a legacy thing for farmers, to honour their ancestors and those who went before them, even if it wasn’t their family.”

For May, that distinction is central to the project’s value. He has seen how quickly a farm can change.

He says documentation gives farm families a chance to preserve what they can before the physical landscape changes.

“It’s part of contributing to history and the archives and preserving memories of the agriculture and the families that were here before us.

“It offers a way to ensure that even when an old barn is gone, the history it holds is not.” BF