Modern twist on old builds

WHAT makes so many of us want to live in a converted barn, chapel, mill or stables when there are perfectly acceptable properties all over the UK specifically designed for people to live in? The answer, of course, is because they’re so different.

- Deborah Stone

“You can make them as modern as you like or as characterful as you like,” says estate agent Liza Rogers, who has a converted barn on her books that she says is “light, open and airy.”

This, she says, not only offers country living but also a ready-made community, with residents in three other converted farm buildings on the Shropshire site.

In Aberdeenshire, estate agent Gillian Fleming is selling a converted chapel and completely understands the attraction of living in unusual buildings. “Often you get much bigger rooms, more character, and it can just add to the whole grand feel of something that’s not a three-bedroom house.”

This is certainly what appealed to Liza’s clients Simon and Lindsay Seabright, who are selling their converted barn in Bourton, a small rural village near Much Wenlock, to look for a home with a horse paddock.