ABSTRACT
One strand has sought to establish a broad narrative understanding of the evolution of farm buildings across a wide geographical area, using the evidence of documents, of historic texts concerning agricultural buildings, and of the buildings themselves. In parallel with this focus on individual major buildings, during the 1980s and 1990s, increasing numbers of traditional farm buildings came to have been redundant for so long that they began to be at severe risk from dilapidation. The possibilities for using the evidence of farm buildings as a primary historical source extend beyond agrarian history itself. While this may be the most obvious image of 19th-century industrial agriculture, it is not the only one. Looking in the opposite direction from the 'factory' farm, intensified production at once made possible and responded to the demands, first for grain and then for meat, of the new and ever increasing urban and industrial population.
