Discover the Hoge Berg

The sheep barns on Texel are quite unique in the world. In the local dialect they are known as ‘skéépeboete’. This building style has proved its worth for over four centuries. There are about 85 barns located across the traditional heart of the island. The form actually looks like a traditional pyramid shaped barn, only with one flat side.

Flat facade

The high flat facade on one side of the barn is referred to in technical terms as the ‘schot’, meaning ‘partition’. Building the barn in this way made it easy to load hay from a wagon into the barn’s loft. High shutters were installed in the facade for this purpose. The flat facade almost always faces north-east, and in this way provides shelter for livestock during harsh westerly winds.

Built around a square

As in the construction of traditional farmhouses, the sheep barn frame is made of four massive poles, supporting a high square of heavy beams. The beams which support the roof rest on this frame. It is not precisely known when the first sheep barn was built in this way but we can presume that it was quite soon after the construction of the first traditional farmhouses on the island. That was in the second half of the sixteenth century. On a drawing of the Hoge Berg area in 1727, there are two sheep barns in the foreground.

Re-use

The wooden frame of the barns is often made of second-hand shipbuilding wood or old poles from the dyke. Wood was scarce and expensive on Texel. Farmers were therefore glad to hear that a ship had sunk along the coast. The mast and other rounded wooden parts could then be used in construction. Shipbuilding timber was also used for cladding the facade.

Traditional use

The barns were mainly used to store hay in the large lofts. There was space for tools on the ground floor. Small numbers of livestock could also be kept in the barn if necessary. For this reason, most sheep barns have a well for cleaning and drinking water.

Thatch or roof tiles

Most sheep barns have a thatched roof, as straw was cheaper than roof tiles for many centuries. However, you’ll often see two or three rows of roof tiles on the lowest part of the roof. These were placed to prevent livestock from chewing on the straw roof. Some of the barn roofs are half tiled. This was most probably due to the fact that farmers couldn’t dig a well inside their barn and therefore needed a larger roof surface to gather rainwater.

Modernising barns

From 1900 onwards, an increasing number of farmers invested in larger farming machinery. In order to house these machines, wagon doors were fitted in the newer sheep barns. Later, the barns were no longer of much use to the farmers. Some were declared as listed buildings, others were left to the mercy of the elements and allowed to simply collapse.