Rigging

Once upon a time, my parents lived on an old farm property. 80% was woodland, 20% pasture. The house had a carriage barn next to it. The ground level could hold three cars (four if you didn't mind moving one) and had a workshop off to the side.

Up by the front of the barn, there was a 6' x 6' hatch to the attic. The hatch wasn't made of plywood. It was hinged on one side and heavy as fuck. A set of narrow, steep stairs in the back led to the attic. Dad said that with that heavy hatch, the attic was pretty much unusable.

I didn't accept that. The hatch had a ring in the top near the edge. There was a similar ring scewed into a roof beam. Then I got two triple-blocks, a cleat, and some rope. One of the triple-blocks had a ring at the bottom and a shackle at the top, the other had just a shackle. I put the block with the shackle on the roof beam and the other one on the hatch. I started the rope from the ring on the top block and then ran it from block to block, ending up coming off the top block. I put the cleat in a convenint spot.

Since the hatch lip moved about four or five feet up when it was open, I had to pull a lot of rope to open it. The easy way was to grab the rope and walk back with it. Then I'd walk up the rope, hold it again, and repeat until the hatch was wide open. When it was open far enough, I tied it off to the cleat.

Later on, I had a hook made that would secure the hatch in the open position. So then, I'd place the hook and slack off on the rope until the hook was holding at least part of the weight of the hatch. One still had to be careful, as in the early 19th Century, they didn't put railings around open hatchways.

In all probablility, that was the way that the hatch was opened and closed when the barn was used for carriages, but the rigging had long since vanished. Possibly a previous owner thought that the easiest way to kid-proof it was to make it so kids couldn't open it.