Threshing Floor - Structure of Indoor Floors

Structure of Indoor Floors

The central bay of a barn was the typical location of the thrashing floor. Some large barns have two or even three threshing floors. The floors in barns may be packed dirt, stone, or a tightly fitted wood. To keep the grain from falling out the open doorway(s) a board was sometimes placed across the doorway called a threshold, but the term threshold was originally the floor itself or well foot-worn floor boards. Threshing in barns was mostly done by hand with a flail until threshing machines became available in the 19th century. The harvest could be stored in the barn and threshed during the winter. Barns may have a granary room or a separate granary building may have been used to store the threshed crop.

A unique barn feature in some barns in parts of the northeast United States, called a swing beam, was designed for animals to walk in circles around a pole inside the barn pulling a device to thresh the grain instead of using a flail. The farm family could use the barn to their advantage in winnowing by standing in a doorway where a slight breeze is magnified by the wind passing around the building. Some barns had smaller winnowing doors to the rear of the threshing floor to concentrate the breeze even more than the big barn doors.