Coombe Barn, Wembury, Devon

Here are the new (bi-fold) doors I made.

This is how the little barn looked originally when we were laying the water pipe. 

Finally, after Doug living in France for 8 months and Rachel working in London for 16 months and lots of planning and building regulations drawings we finally got there. The Building Control Inspector came today and … we have now officially started!

April 19th 2012

Brilliant, after lots of hard work by Dan Lethbridge he submitted the drawings and today received notice of approval. The only thing missing now are Dave’s structural engineering calculations and then we can call the building inspector.

Yes poor Digby has lost some teeth from his tracks and needs new ones. Although only one track was affected we decided to replace both.

David the batman came today. After poking around he noticed that the first floor timber floor boards had been removed. This was done by the previous owners, we guess, to stop rot and to avoid accidents of people falling through the rotten floor.
He declared that the microclimate that previously existed was now probably destroyed, and with it the bat roost. They should have had a license for that activity.

Hey Ho.

However, he did say that the little barn would be excellent for a bat roost, especially if there was an egress on the North gable, which points directly into a hedgerow. Bats like that, so they can dodge in and out surreptitiously. So, we still have to build a bat roost in the loft of our little barn because that is what our planning permission requires. The batman added a blockwork tunnel descending to ground floor to provide a cave-like area for the Lesser Horshoe bats.

Then….. We can get on with the real work.