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 parlor 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.
The largest barnyard business to open in the past few years is the Engine Yard at Belvoir Castle, launched in September 2018. This is a stunning redevelopment of a derelict Victorian yard and its original workshop buildings, on a massive scale. The three-acre site comprises 12,000 square feet of retail space, with parking for 700 cars. It is the first retail village of its kind in the area and is the culmination of a vision the Duchess of Rutland had 18 years ago, when the buildings just below the castle first became vacant.
هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 2020 من The Field.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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هذه القصة مأخوذة من طبعة April 2020 من The Field.
ابدأ النسخة التجريبية المجانية من Magzter GOLD لمدة 7 أيام للوصول إلى آلاف القصص المتميزة المنسقة وأكثر من 9,000 مجلة وصحيفة.
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Rory Stewart - The former Cabinet minister and hit podcast host talks to Alec Marsh about the parlous state of British politics, land management and his deep love of the countryside
The gently spoken 51-year-old former Conservative Cabinet minister is a countryman at heart. That's clear: he even changes into a tweed waistcoat for the interview, which takes place at his London home and begins with a question about his precise career status. Having resigned from the Commons and the Conservative Party in 2019, the former diplomat and soldier has reinvented himself, first with an unconventional but promising run as an independent for the London mayoralty (abandoned because of COVID19 in 2020) and then as a media figure, co-hosting one of the country's most popular podcasts, The Rest Is Politics, alongside Alastair Campbell, the former Labour spin doctor.
Fodder
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The first civil engineer
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