It was pretty substantial, but not that useful, as we didn’t have animals, well, 4 Jacobs sheep for a season to help keep the grass down. Their parting and demise was so difficult, I have decided that I will never make a ‘proper’ farmer… 

Our kayaking business was thriving, and we found people asking us about accommodation in the village. Apart from a small hotel at the more expensive end of the price range, and our neighbour’s one Air BnB room, there were only self catering properties in the village. The local Youth Hostel had closed – not through lack of interest, but the land and the building provided much needed funds. 

Then, as is often the case, a chance glance at a Facebook post that a friend had ‘liked’ led us on the path to the solution. It was essentially an advert for an Ecological building firm and Architects. We invited one of the partners – Martin Penk – to come and have a look at what we had, and whether he thought anything would be possible. He walked all around the land, and then the barn, and didn’t say much – we weren’t sure if that was good or bad! He said two important things for us – one, he was looking at the various views and framing them in his mind, as far as windows were concerned, and two, he liked to make a building that could be dismantled and all the component parts could be recycled, and there would be very little, if any, mark to show it had been there. That was it – he completely understood what was important to us. 

So we began – planning is never straightforward, but the ins and outs would take another website! We took the old barn down with a friend helping us, and spent an alternatively cold and wet winter separating all the components for reuse at some point and preparing the groundworks of concrete pads to sit the ‘legs’ for the frame, and digging trenches for drains etc. we had no services so it was a concrete mixer run by a generator, and me ferrying water from our house in containers in our 4 x 4 truck. 

Spring came and the frame arrived – normally, this type of building would be partially completed offsite and craned into position, but the access was so restricted that everything came as its basic state on a flatbed truck. Without Walter Baileys, our local agricultural merchants, this project would not have been possible. They took delivery in their yard of anything we needed and then brought it up to us. Andrew Bailey personally took not only an interest but more or less adopted us and the project – sadly, he passed away a few years ago, but we have a memorial bench to him in our orchard, and often sit there and think of his fantastic support. 

Our architect supplied us with fabulous craftsmen as and when we needed them, and it was decided that I (Karen) would stay on site, whilst David ran our kayak business. Being involved in every aspect was challenging, educational and at times stressful, but I was put to work and loved every minute of it, poring over websites in the evenings, and continuing to bake cakes for our cafe until late at night. Whenever we had a spare moment we were working up there, which not only saved us money but really gave us a practical and emotional connection to the project. 

We could fill another website just with the building, and we are always happy to talk to guests about it, so this is a brief picture (it might not seem like it by the time you’ve read to the end!) 

The whole building is wooden framed with glulam (laminated wooden) beams, that rest on metal feet on top of concrete pads. It is then completely insulated in a 12 inch thick duvet of sheep’s wool – it took me about 8 weeks to complete – walls, floor and roof. We used 70Kg bales of waste wool – all sorts, from fluffy fleece to dyed colours, some with the sheepskin attached to dusty lumps of fluff. We were able to share the transportation as our architect was engaged in another project at the time, and we were able to share costs. 

The windows are triple glazed, wooden framed, with aluminium exterior trims, which we chose as we suffer from salt winds. What a good decision that turned out to be – they have been wonderful, and the powder coated colour has matched well with the ever changing hues of the exterior, which is clad in local larch. This started out as quite orange, but has mellowed to shades of grey and pink.