Our shippon

The first building you come to within our site is our shippon, with a lovely red clay-tiled roof. Formerly an open-fronted cow milking shed and dating back almost 200 years (a similar time to the farmhouse), it was extended and enclosed along the courtyard side at some point before the second World War, resulting in an unusual change in roof pitch. Our neighbours suggested this may have happened at the same time as milking machines were introduced, to keep them safe and dry. The large sliding door at the north end has long since gone (we suspect it was reused for the now-collapsed compost bins) and both this and the various missing window panes mean the wind and rain now come in unchallenged. 

 The shippon is a single storey building with a floor that slopes from one end to the other – one feature we’ve yet to consider how we manage without removing crazy amounts of concrete! The triangle-of-roof beams still have incredible wooden pegs securing them, and roman numerals inscribed to help the builders match the three beams correctly – we’re hoping to keep at least some of these visible (although we’re not sure if these are original or more recent). It’s been somewhat taken over by vegetation – a common theme with all our derelict buildings – one of our long-standing jobs is to try and clear it all back to avoid further damage to the building. 

Our plan (subject to Council approval) is to convert this into two smaller properties. The first one will be a one-bed cottage with a small patio area within the courtyard (sectioned off from the parking), and with the first of our bat lofts above the property. The other end we hope to extend, and turn into a two-bed cottage that we’ll move into. It’ll be a bit different from living in the farmhouse – but the intention is to include a good-sized window in the extended end overlooking the valley (the east side of the building is completely brick and we can’t make any holes in it to add other windows). The building is set back a bit from the road and is at a higher elevation, so there shouldn’t be much traffic disturbance, and we should be able to see over the top of the famous Devon hedges too!!  

As this building is in the vicinity of our Elizabethan Cottage, it’s considered ‘curtilage listed’ which means it has the same protection and restrictions as if it were listed. Our original plan had been to extend both ends of the building to create two two-bed cottages, but the council feel this would change the character of the site too much, and so we’ve scaled back our plans accordingly. Although we’re still waiting for planning, it’s very exciting to stand in the building and imagine what it could look like when we’re finished – if somewhat hard to visualise!! And we’ll never forget the story one of our neighbours told us about an evening just after they first moved in 25+years ago. Ley Farm was a working dairy farm with the shippon in working use; on this occasion the cows had been moved out of the shippon earlier that day, and mixing decks set up at one end to hold an impromptu disco in it!