Ah, the Chalk floor - love it or hate it? One of the Conditions on the original Planning Permission was that we must retain the small area of rammed chalk floor in the middle of the barn. And in discussion with the planners it was clear that that condition was there to stay.
I’d never heard of a rammed chalk before – and wish I never had. The problem is we can’t lower that part of the ground floor and have to construct the new floor surface over the top of the chalk, which makes things difficult when it comes to headroom under beams and all that. However I have to admit - it did put off some other potential buyers who were looking at the barn at the same time as us. So, on balance, we love it. Even if it is a bit of a pain.
The bats, the bats. There’s no evidence of bats actually roosting in the barn, but a bat survey did find some 6 pipistrelle droppings on the ground inside the barn and one long eared bat dropping. It’s thought that bats fly around the barn and maybe through it on their nocturnal foraging for insects. We have to provide an alternative to make up for the loss of habitat that the conversion entails. Bat boxes, or Gites a Chauves-souris as the French say. Nice idea - that we have to provide holiday accommodation for bats. Guess we have think about a swimming pool too if we want attract the right class of bat. Wouldn’t want any old riff raff bats thank you very much.
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