Hay was generally stored in special buildings called hay barns, which could be dedicated exclusively to this purpose or occupy the upper part of a stable with which they were in communication thanks to an opening (often a trap door) in the floor that facilitated the transfer of hay from the place of storage to the place of consumption.
In rarer cases, hay could be stored outdoors, in large conical stacks (known as haystacks or ricks) stabilized by a pole driven into the ground at their center, to reduce the contact of the hay with atmospheric agents and preserve its quality. Thanks to the conical shape, in fact, the rain flowed more easily from the top to the bottom, avoiding losses of nutritional quality due to leaching and reducing the risk that humidity would create fermentation processes that would make the hay unusable.