Forms: 1 bere-tun, 7 barten, berton, 7–9 dial. barken, 6– barton. [OE. bęre-tún barley-enclosure, courtyard, farmstead, etc., f. bęre barley (see BEAR sb.2) + tún enclosure: see TOWN. Cf. BARN, OE. bere-ærn.]

1

  † 1.  A threshing-floor. Obs.; only in OE.

2

c. 950.  Lindisf. Gosp., Matt. iii. 12. Ðerh clænsade bere-tun [Vulg. aream] his.

3

  2.  A farm-yard. (The regular modern sense.)

4

1552.  Huloet, Barton or place enclosed where husbandry is vsed, cohors.

5

1674.  Ray, S. & E. Countr. Wds., 58. A Barken or (as they use it in Sussex) Barton: a yard of a house, a backside.

6

1721.  Bailey, Barton … a Backside, Fold-yard or Out-house.

7

1816.  Southey, Poet’s Pilgr., III. 41. Spacious bartons clean, well-wall’d around, Where all the wealth of rural life was found.

8

  attrib.  1787.  Winter, Syst. Husb., 59. Stale urine and barton draining, are greatly preferable to dung.

9

1862.  Barnes, Rhymes Dorset Dial., I. 79. Flop Down into barken pon’.

10

  3.  A demesne farm; the demesne lands of a manor, not let out to tenants, but retained for the lord’s own use.

11

[Monast. Angl., II. 887 (Du Cange). Et in Bertonia mea de Cadeham unum locum ad construendam aliam grangiam.

12

1393.  Rot. 17 Rich. II. (Spelman). Gulielmus le Scrope … habet Castrum, villam et bertonam de Marlebergh.]

13

1587.  Fleming, Contn. Holinshed, III. 303/2. He also did … purchase the lordship and house of Clist Sachisfield, and … did inlarge the Barton thereof, by gaining of Cornish wood.

14

1602.  Carew, Cornwall, 36 a. That part of the demaines, which appertaineth to the Lord’s dwelling house, they call his Barten, or Berton.

15

1724.  Lond. Gaz., No. 6253/3. The Barton of Tregarrick … contains 80 Acres of … good Land, 150 Acres of good Arable, [etc.].

16

1813.  Vancouver, Agric. Devon, 253. A fine grove of Scotch and silver fir on the barton of Bridestow.

17

  attrib.  c. 1630.  Risdon, Surv. Devon, § 91. The barton tenants [cf. BARTONER].

18

1708.  Lond. Gaz., No. 4412/3. The Barton-House of Kentaberry.

19

  † 4.  An enclosure for poultry, a pen. Obs.

20

1552.  Huloet, Inclusure called a barton to feade fowles in, chors.

21

1756.  Nugent, Montesquieu’s Spir. Laws (1758), II. XXXI. xviii. 452. The eggs of the bartons of his demesnes.

22

1783.  Ainsworth, Lat. Dict. (Morell), A barton for poultry, gallinarium.

23

  † 5.  Used to translate L. cavædium: The inner court of a Roman house. Obs.

24

1519.  Horman, Vulg., 138. Moche of the showre felle into the louer: but moche more into the barton [L. cauedium].

25