Day 70. Staddle Stones

        A staddle stone, now used as a garden ornament.

As farm sizes expanded and corn yields rose, the traditional barn (see Day 69) became inadequate for storing the harvest. Some farmers built additional barns; others built the sheaves into outdoor ricks in a rickyard. Two farms in Preston had a rickyard in the early 18^th century. Within a century they were almost ubiquitous – aided greatly when the steam threshing engine replaced the hand flail –  and the barns fell into disrepair.

Ricks had a number of advantages. Ricks were quicker and simpler to assemble, and each was easily accessible. In a barn, the sheaves had to be removed in a last-in first-out manner. But being outdoors, their construction was weather-dependent and if a waterproof thatch wasn't added quickly, the farmer risked the grain spoiling. Fires were also very common.

To combat the perennial problem of rats and mice, the ricks were built on a 'staddle': a wooden lattice framework on staddle stones. These mushroom-shaped stones were designed to prevent rats climbing into the ricks.  As the term is now long obsolete, it is commonly miswritten as 'saddle stone'.

Rick-building was a tricky job. Each sheaf had to be positioned just right to create a solid structure which would not collapse, let rain in or leave air spaces for mould to develop. One error would cause several tons of sheaves to avalanche to the ground. And if too damp, spontaneous combustion was common, especially in hay ricks.

Ricks were used to store the harvest until the invention of the combine-harvester, which redefined the harvest scene from the 1940s. Grain was now threshed from the ears as it was reaped, and was bagged before it ever left the fields.