In one of their outbuildings, the Broes have 10 carriages and sleds, some restored originals, others reproductions, all handsome and meticulously painted.
Since its founding, the society, whose full-time director is Courtney T. Burns, has acquired seven historic buildings and their outbuildings on Village Lane, the four-acre village green called Poquatuck Park, and two historic cemeteries.
The existing halls were full and so South Stoneham and South Hill were extended by covering their outbuildings.
The farm was bought by Mather's family 60 years ago: now, HS2 will take away 19 of their 23 acres, and 60% of land that they rent close by, along with their farmhouse and outbuildings.
The inspectors, bearing clipboards, tape recorders, cameras and flashlights, spent much of their time scouring outbuildings, taking swab samples from air-filtration systems and, in the case of one inspector, clambering to the top of a 20-foot tank, then nodding to his colleagues as if to confirm that he had found what he expected.
That same potbelly stove now heats one of the outbuildings at their country home.
*The couple converted outbuildings at their Milton Keynes home into The Stables theatre, and ran music education programmes there.
Their contractor, Larry Cavagnaro, kept asking them, "Are you sure you want to do this?" To create the impression of an established compound, the architect moved several outbuildings from their original locations closer to the house.
In the distance, they could see a cluster of outbuildings on their property: an old horse barn, a bunkhouse, a washhouse (where Martin's ancestors made soap and did their laundry), a kennel building, and a quonset hut they had long ago converted into a storage shed for grain and tractors.
He said, "What was I to do with him, bring him back here?" His point was that the congregation had put a lot of thought and effort into hollow walls and hidden cellars in their various cabins and outbuildings, tunnels that started from false-bottomed potato bins and opened up under haystacks a hundred yards away and so forth.
"Anyone could really start their own hatting shop in an outbuilding behind their home," he said.
