Old Threshing Barn, Avebury

The Old Threshing Barn at Avebury in Wiltshire is a gigantic agricultural building from the late seventeenth-century. It is where grain was stored, threshed and winnowed. This means that the chaff was removed from the precious wheat from which bread etc could be made.

This building kept the local village in food during the cold winter but also was the place on which the tasteless, harmful stuffs were removed. Threshing and winnowing are important pictures in the Bible of the Lord purifying His people from the charlatans and imposters which presume to walk among them. Our Lord is coming back, not just to invite us to a feast, but to expel and expunge all those who are harmful and faithless.

“His winnowing fan is in His hand, and He will thoroughly clean out His threshing floor, and gather the wheat into His barn; but the chaff He will burn with unquenchable fire.” Luke 3:17