HISTORY OF THE BARN
Built about 200 years ago as a threshing barn and piggery, called New Barn (no need for fancy names for farm buildings!), they were, for most of their life, used for agricultural purposes. When I moved here in 1995 the barn was really only used for fertilizer storage by the farmer who owned it. The Old Piggery was a derelict pig unit and the barn yard was full of weeds and brambles.
In 2005 the farmer decided to sell it to invest in some more land. To cut a long story short, I begged, borrowed and stole and managed to buy the barn and the piggery together plus the additional land that we have now – we’re on about 3 acres in total. If only I’d known then what hard work lay ahead ……! The only permission I could get for the buildings was holiday accommodation, so I set out to convert The Old Piggery first and this was completed and saw its first guests in 2008. In the meantime, I put some pigs to work in the barn yard to clear it and for a time bred rare breed pigs there and in the adjoining stable (now a bathroom!)
For a time the barn was used for lambing, storing wood, an old truck amongst other things, and then the 500 straw bales I collected for the construction of the straw bale barn you can see as you drive down the lane (finished in 2011).
‘Elsie’ the wind turbine arrived in 2012,
After a lot of blood, sweat and tears the conversion of Running Hare Barn was finally completed in 2016 and the first guests stayed in July of that year.