In the highest part of the town of Fara San Martino there is an ancient village consisting of rural buildings placed along a main road axis; some of them are contiguous, while others are detached. Currently most of the buildings is in decay and in state of neglect, but some buildings are still occupied by families.
Structural techniques of these houses reveal that the village had to develop between the end of the 19th century and the second half of the twentieth century. Probably the families that built and inhabited them were of modest standard of living; in fact, the buildings are characterized by great simplicity of structure and the use of poor materials such as pieces of limestone and river stones for walls, rough-hewn stone blocks for the cantonal, rows of tiles for cornices.
The floors, which are quite simple, are made with thick wooden load-bearing beams on which is placed a plank or brick floor.
The roofs, mostly double pitched, consist of wooden beams that support a plank or a brick floor covered by a mantle of roof tiles. The portals and windows openings have limestone cornices. The village of Terra Vecchia represents a corner of the past of Fara San Martino and demonstrates a kind of community life marked by simplicity, frugality, but also solidarity between families.