If you like DIY, you’ll love this.
Preserved in storage for around 20 years this huge seventeenth-century barn could be yours when it goes to auction next week.
It was part of the grounds of Acton Hall in the village, near Sudbury, up until the early 1990s when it was under threat of sale – with a chance it was going to be sold off in individual parts.
But historic buildings expert, John Langdon, 68, salvaged the striking tithe barn and started the painstaking process of cataloguing and colour coding every one of its hundreds of parts.
It is now up for at least £100,000, but prospective buyers not handy with a hammer needn’t worry.
Mr Langdon, alongside his carpenter, are available to restore the barn – for a fee of around another £100,000.
There is even hope a Suffolk buyer will come forward and take it on – an option Mr Langdon would prefer.
He said: “It’s a very impressive building and what we were always trying to do is avoid the individual beams being sold.
“We want to find the right use for it and the right location for it. There are fewer and fewer of these big idled barns, it’s an exception and this is the last opportunity; there’s not any other ones like it.
“It was pretty unique then and now it’s definitely a one-off situation.”
Mr Langdon said buying the barn would only be a “small part” of the overall cost – with the interior’s fixtures and fittings likely to cost tens of thousands of pounds.
He added: “The barn has got an awful lot of bang for your buck; ultimately I would love to be able to show it to the original carpenters who built it all of those years ago, they would be tickled pink by it.”
The barn, which is 121ft long, 28ft wide and 25ft tall, had been sold to a brewery after it was taken down. But the brewery could never find a suitable site for the barn to move to and eventually sold it back.
Tomorrow there is an open day for interested parties at the barn’s location in Stowupland.
The deadline for offers, which are being conducted in writing through Summers Place Auctions, is October 22.
Contact James Rylands from Summers Place Auctions to make an appointment for the open day. Call 01403 331334.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here