Holes in barn doors

The Meetjesland in the north of East-Flanders, Belgium

Holes in barn doors

The picture you see here now was taken around 1950 in St.-Margriete. There is an opening high up in the big barn door, wide open here in this picture.
Barn in St.-Margriete

The pictures you see below were taken in Rossignol in the south of Belgium. But for many centuries many barn doors in Flanders had holes like these until I dare say the 1960s.

Through these doors the horse drawn wagons laden high with sheafs of wheat or barley entered the barn to be unloaded. On the other side were two doors just as wide but no where near as high. They didn't need to be high for the empty wagons. The harvest stayed there until the winter arrived and the grain had dried. It was then thrashed with the flail (to separate the grain from the straw).

Thrashing with the flail continued until huge wooden machines took over and thrashed in a day what took several men weeks of hard and dusty labour with their flails. After WW II the combine harvester won the day and many barns remained largely empty from then on.

Maldegem barn, now demolished
Photo first published in the periodical «Ons Meetjesland», 1986, issue 2.

From the 1960s on when the planks (or the doors themselves) had to be replaced, all too often no one took the trouble to cut out the holes. And by now these things have been all but forgotten. And the barns themselves, old and useless, are also disappearing rapidly.

So these holes, what were they for ? To permit birds and bats to seek refuge inside ? Was that the only reason they were there? How come they disappeared so fast ?

As fast as the swallows disappeared ? Year after year these birds came back and took possession of their old nest or rebuilt it at the same place. As soon as the eggs were hatched from early in the morning until late in the evening they flew at breakneck speed from the bright Summer sunlight outside through this hole in the door into the dark barn to feed their young.

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