Barns Heritage

The barns were built in approximately 1870 by talented stonemasons and architects – perhaps one of the most striking things about The Barns is their sheer size and the quantity of beautiful stone that was required. The process of gaining planning permission on The Barns was rather lengthy; but Kinsey has expertly and thoughtfully designed each unit with family living and luxury in mind. Every original opening has been preserved, and further openings have been added, according to planning permission, with such sympathy that we challenge you to notice them! Anything that was removed from the buildings (such as the hay racks and doors) were reinterpreted and reworked into things such as furniture or artwork.

The Barns in their modern converted layout were beautifully designed and project managed by Kinsey himself and took a painstaking 3.5 years to complete. He, through experience, had noticed that most modern or converted holidays lets in the UK were designed for maximum sleeping capacity at the expense of living space which is so vital when relaxing on holiday so he set about designing the spaces to enable larger groups to also have copious amounts of living and ‘break-out’ spaces and to ensure each bedroom has its own private bathroom.

For some accuracy the names of The Barns correspond to their original use. Natural light is something of a luxury in old barns as they were not designed with humans in mind so again Kinsey carefully considered this in the design with as much glazing as allowed to enjoy the outdoors from the indoors.  Kinsey’s wife Camilla was in charge of the interiors so together they exposed as many stone and brick walls as possible, used natural and recycled textures, raw and simple fabrics (from Tinsmiths in Ledbury) together with an earthy colour palette and an understanding of the buildings they once were. They made sure that most materials were sourced from local companies and tried to reduce environmental impact wherever possible. The spaces inside are very generous, well laid out and gently lit – having a delicate hand to create usable spaces that are practical yet pretty was key.