The Bears Barn - for two adults, non-smokers only, sorry no children or pets.

The barn was originally owned by a vicar in Hartington but he was moved south a few years after he bought it and only used to visit occasionally (we were told by someone in the village). When we first visited it, it hadn't been occupied for a while, and many generations of creepy-crawlies had made it their home. The stairs that you can see on the drawing to the left lead up to the bedroom and when the boys were young they used to sit on the balcony blowing bubbles.

We aren't sure how old the building is. We know it was converted in the late 1980's because the vicar bought it from new from the builders. From the look of the tiles on the roof, we would estimate it to be around the mid to late 1800's. It was definitely there in 1918 because we have a dated postcard of it. Click here to see it.

The barn is a mixture of new and old inside. The beams in the living room and bedroom are original, the rest is a more modern design and the kitchen was installed by us just after we bought the barn. Heating is by storage heaters running on the heatwise tariff, which means it gets three top-ups over each 24 hour cycle.

The four poster doubles as a trampoline quite happily and the view to the rear looks out onto a farm. The lounge has a FreeSat TV and DVD and the kitchen sports a dishwasher.

Click here to read some comments from our visitors book.

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