KEITH WHITCOMB JR.

Staff Writer

ARLINGTON -- The foundation of the historic Yellow Barn is being repaired this week, said Select Board member Cynthia Browning at a board meeting Monday.

She said in an interview that about 10 years ago a nearby bridge was rebuilt over the Batten Kill and the road there was raised up, sending more water past the Yellow Barn’s foundation. She said the barn was also built above the frost line and with the two factors had begun to crack and shift.

She said two sections of the foundation are being replaced. The work is being done by Mike Connors of Dorset. Most of the project is being funded through a federal grant, administered by the Vermont Division for Historic Preservation. The total cost of the project is $19,000, she said.

Of that, $13,900 is funded through the grant, while the rest is coming out of the barn’s endowment fund, from private donors.

The Yellow Barn Farm, as it’s known, is owned by the town. It used to belong to the Canfield family, which donated numerous parcels of land to the town over the years, including the Arlington Recreational Park. The first section of the barn was built in 1851, said Browning. The foundation used to be stone, but was replaced with a concrete one in the 1970s. The current work will not change the character of the building, she said.

Browning said the barn mainly serves as storage space for town and school equipment. The land nearby is also used for a community garden, which with the help of local Girl Scouts has produced vegetables for the Fisher Elementary School’s summer lunch program. About 18 scouts, mostly first graders, planted the garden in June and some have been helping harvest over the summer.

In other business, the board voted to accept a bid from Catamount Environmental to repaint and seal the covered bridge on East Arlington Road. The bid was for $16,940, said board Chairman Keith Squires. A grant will fund $11,150, but the state only funds $10,035 of the grant. He said the rest can be paid out of funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which was awarded to the town to repair it after it was damaged by Tropical Storm Irene flooding.

He said some of the work will involve stringing a type of net beneath the bridge to keep chemicals from the job out of the river.

Contact Keith Whitcomb Jr. at kwhitcomb@benningtonbanner.com or follow him on Twitter @KWhitcombjr