A Little Log Horse Stable in Lanark County

By Claudia Smith, OBP Secretary

Horses built this country. With plodding hooves, sweat-darkened hides and dust-clearing snorts, horses pulled everything from log sleighs and hearses to ploughs, hay wagons, grain binders and threshing machines.       

This log horse stable in Lanark County, dating from late 1830s-1840s, still stands straight and strong – part of a grand legacy of log barns still in evidence in the area.

Made of 12 logs square-notched at the corners, the 33’x 26’ stable sits on flat cornerstones and a rubble stone foundation. The chinked logs in the lower level are flat-hewn on the inside but left round on the outside. The floor joists of the hay loft protrude from the chinking at the seventh log. The logs of the loft are roughly broad axed on the inside and round on the outside. They are unchinked to allow for loft ventilation.

The south-facing main set of doors swing on four hand-forged strap hinges – three of which are different styles. The double board construction keeps out the winds of winter and they are held closed with a wooden slide bolt that moves between two iron brackets with a well-worn, iron pin that opens the doors from the outside and the inside.  

The stable is bright with light through three windows and a four-paned, square tilt window in the loft. Before the barn was wired for electricity, a lantern was hung from a wire on nail in an overhead beam.

Most farms had a heavy work team and another lighter horse to drive to town or church or a team of “farm chunks” that were light enough to travel quickly on the roads but heavy enough for all ordinary farm work. The log barns of the mid-1800s often had a two-horse standing stall and one or two single stalls each separated by wooden partitions. This stable, with evidence of 16” floor planks, 2¼ to 3” thick, has a box stall, a wide standing stall and what may have been a foaling box with a wide, drop-down board for pushing feed through to a manger.

There is a hay door in each gable end but no sign now of access by an exterior ladder. When the scythed hay was “rattling dry,” it was forked onto a hay wagon to be pitched into the loft. At noon horses were watered and fed but on hot summer days log stables were close and stuffy and often horses were still sweaty after the noon rest. At the end of long days, the sweat was wiped off the harness before it was hung on sturdy tree-crotch hooks.

The gable roof is attached to an abutted log barn that allows for passage between the lofts of both. To access the stable loft a steep set of stairs goes up and then doubles back into the loft. There is a wide hay hatch down to a feed room.

Farm families recognized that their horses were their lifeline and that if well cared for they would serve to the last of their strength. This snug stable provided shelter to the important farm partners and a decorative tribute to horsepower – this small, forged iron horse – has “trotted” on the frame of the main stable door for almost two centuries.

This stable in Lanark County just west of Ottawa is owned by, and has housed the horses of, Kay and Peter Leach for many years.

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