This historic place was registered under the Historic Places Act 1980. The following text is the original citation considered by the NZHPT Board at the time of registration. Built in the 1870's by Lars Andersen Schou on Block 26 of the Danish settlement of Mauriceville West, this barn is the last surviving example of slabs-hus construction. Before the settlers could build houses of sawn timber they erected small huts of vertical slabs smoothly dressed with a broad axe and roofed in shingles supported on a frame of adzed saplings. Schou's barn used the same basic materials but the slabs were roughly adzed. As with many of the huts the floor is of earth. The roof now has corrugated iron and as there are no battens under it this is probably the original material. Squatting below giant Macrocarpas the barn is particularly attractive with its weathered unpainted Totara slabs and steep pitched gabled roof having lean-tos on each side. Lars Andersen Schou was a bachelor who lived a Spartan life in a tiny hut alongside his barn. His hobby was writing indifferent poetry in his native tongue. The barn is significant as being the last recognisable link with the buildings of this Danish settlement.