From redundancy to reuse: a disused Dorset barn becomes an office

31st March 2020

Standing just outside Tarrant Hinton on the main road into the village, this small, unlisted brick barn was once part of a local dairy business.  We added it to the SAVE Buildings at Risk Register in 1999 and though periodically maintained, its disuse and consequent look of redundancy was a long-running cause for concern.  The barn stands in the village conservation area, which itself is within the Cranbourne Chase and West Wiltshire Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, and has a number of attractive features such as the "hit-and-miss" ventilation in diamond shapes at the sides.

In 2018, planning permission and listed building consent was granted to add a single storey extension to the barn and create four small offices.  The small extension nicely compliments the red brick barn, using contrasting colours of brick and stone.  The office space was available to let through local estate agents, Chaffers, but appears now to have been taken.  However, if you are interested in some highly attractive small office space, it might be worth enquiring further. 

Our original entry about this building on the register was quite pessimistic about whether any role other than storage could be found for it, citing the difficulties that many ex-agricultural buildings experience in finding a new use.  But in a message that is still as relevant today as it was 20 years ago, we said: "These buildings make an important contribution to the rural landscape and it is important that some means of protecting them can be established before a large part of our rural heritage is lost."  Encouragingly, this looks like an excellent reuse of this long-redundant agricultural building, ensuring its survival and perhaps inspiring the rescue of others.