Barnstorming businesses

With so many small farms struggling to survive, their outmoded barns and farm buildings often end up derelict and abandoned. I find it uplifting to come across any that have been repurposed as thriving barnyard businesses. In just one week, I visited a famous contemporary art gallery in an 18th-century tithe barn in Somerset and had lunch in its former cowsheds, now a trendy restaurant. Later that week, I dropped off my daughter at her drama school in a tiny Oxfordshire hamlet, its former barns and workshops no longer housing sheep and cattle but full of budding actors.

Then I popped up to Leicestershire to see the new retail park at Belvoir Castle in the former Engine Yard. Nearer to home, I collected some personalised pottery from an isolated converted milking parlour and its former cowsheds, where a kiln now operates seven days a week. I reflected on how popular and successful these barnyard businesses appear to be and how the buildings have been renovated in appealing and innovative ways.