Buss Stalls, Barrington Court

We met Kate & Sophie at Barrington Court, the National Trust property near Ilminster, this morning. 

They have an interesting range of holiday activities for children going on and Sophie enjoyed  making an origami pig amongst other things. We explored the gardens, had a picnic lunch then borrowed a cricket set to play in what was the cricket pitch in the grounds. A restorative ice cream was in order afterwards.

The photo shows part of the gardens with the buss stalls, or calf pens along one side (buss is an old Somerset dialect word for a calf).

The gardens were just a farmyard when Colonel Arthur Lyle, who made his money as Director of the sugar company that became Tate & Lyle, bought what was a largely derelict farm after WW1 and set about restoring it and establishing a self-sufficient working community. 

He recycled as much of the original materials as possible and kept as faithful to the original architectural features and techniques as he could, including keeping these original pens as part of the gardens which were based on designs by Gertrude Jekyll.