Farm buildings renovations Part 1 - February 2021
With Hayes farm house and the bungalow successfully hosting guests from all over the world since 2018. We felt the time was right to renovate the six disused farm buildings on site. Unsuitable for modern farming but with beautiful stonework and roofs we felt the buildings ideal for for new holiday lets.
Phase 1 would involve renovating the Calf Shed, Stables, Haybarn and English Barn. The first problem we faced was to get rid of all the surface water that cascaded down from the hills that surrounded the barns, during wet times this area was very wet and muddy so obviously something had to be done.
February 2021 began with significant groundworks scraping off the topsoil, creating land drains that would divert all the water away from any buildings then digging trenches for surface water from the barn roofs to form a French drain type system It was important that we stopped any potential for rain coming down the hill from the hills to the South side of the French barn from flooding around the Haybarn and Calf Shed, all the trenches carried the water from the area to the ditch that runs along the track that leads to the barns.
By the end of February, we had dug drains and laid down clean stone to remove any threat of flooding around the Calf Shed and Haybarn. The site was now clean, dry, and tidy and ready for work on the buildings to commence.
March saw the erection of scaffolding around the four buildings in preparation for the roofers, most of the roofs were in pretty good condition but we still had to strip them all as new felt and batten was required and is some cases new roof timbers were also required, the batt survey picked up on batt roosts so a 1F felt was required, this was also needed to obtain building regulations.
By late March the roofers had striped and felted the roof of the English barn and began retiling.
We also began breaking up the floors in the Calf Shed and Haybarn this had to be done to get the sufficient depth we needed for insulation and new floor screed.
We had finished digging out the floor of what would be the living area of the Haybarn setting acrow props and laying type one and concrete bases in preparation of replacing the rotten wooden posts and slightly raising the roof on that side, providing more headroom for the doors, as with all the other barns we did raise the floor levels slightly to help with any potential flooding.
By the end of the month, we had dug out, stoned and concreted the floor in the Calf Shed.
April began with the carpenters replacing roof timbers on the Haybarn.
By mid-April the Haybarn had been felt battened and tiled.
In order to provide a safe breeding environment for any bat species which had been displaced we created and bat loft and opening in the roof of the Haybarn this would allow the batts easy access to a large loft area.
“Picturesque farmhouse and in a great location. It’s a short drive from some fantastic walks around the Cotswolds. Would highly recommend for a getaway location to experience the countryside”