Barn conversions may be commonplace, but when Eynsham resident Tim Jordan began converting a barn into a house 30 years ago everyone thought he was mad. But his love for the soft Cotswold stone and ancient timbers and a deep respect for the rural history that the barn symbolised was too great to be deterred.

The result is a beautiful family home which blends perfectly into its village setting. It was this personal quest which inspired him to learn more about the barns of Oxfordshire and the Cotswolds.

This has culminated in Cotswold Barns, a delightful and very erudite book which covers their design and construction, and their changing use over the centuries.

In putting all this information together, Tim gives us a rare record of a fast-disappearing feature of our architectural and agricultural heritage.

The unprecedented rate of change over the past half a century or more has led to the advanced rate of first disuse then decay of many of these buildings.

Naturally, Tim addresses the understandable concern when unwanted barns falling into disrepair are converted for alternative use, be it domestic or commercial, but points out that we can't expect farmers to take on the responsibility and costs of maintaining and preserving buildings which have little or no use in a modern agricultural economy.

"Working efficiently with obsolete buildings is equivalent to expecting the manufacturer to work efficiently with outdated plant," Tim said.

Obviously, we need to preserve what we can of the past, he says in his book, as farm buildings are by far the most numerous historical structures in the countryside.

"They include barns from the huge medieval estates and tithe barns to lowlier field barns which dot the wolds, forming an essential record of both our agricultural history and vernacular architecture. They are also forming part of the historic landscape which is increasingly becoming a tourist commodity."

However, he says that they should be viewed in the context of the rural economy.

"Over the centuries, they have been replaced or modified and adapted to meet the changing needs of evolving farm practices. Some have undergone several modifications during their long lifetime."

The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) argued that their use for farming should be kept, even if this required conversion.

Tim explained that this was because the alterations needed to keep the barn within farming would have considerably less impact than those needed if the barns were to be used for other purposes.

"Nevertheless, the SPAB was perfectly cognisant of the fact that this could not always be the case and changes or other uses, given certain guidelines, may well be preferable to simply letting a barn fall into disrepair.

"Of the 30,000 or more listed working farm buildings in the Cotswolds, about a third have already been converted to other uses, mainly residential, though seven per cent of those in more remote areas are in a severe state of repair."

A few have been retained in their original capacity, either as a working museum, as for example at Cogges, Witney, or as a repository for historical farm machinery as at Swalcliffe. At Filkins, a group of farm buildings, together with a threshing barn, have been converted into craft workshops.

The Cotswolds are thought to have one of the highest proportions of farm buildings converted to alternative uses. In the context of the region, the characteristic threshing barns have a number of architectural features which any conversion should respect.

"Specific features like the pitch and sweep of the roof, the simplicity of the exterior with few openings apart from the cart entrances and porches and the quality of the traditional materials and internal timber-framed structure, these really should be retained," said Tim, work which he admits is not cheap.

Cotswold Barns details all these aspects of a barn's construction, along with the regional characteristics such as the oolitic limestone and stone tile roofs, which evolved during the Middle Ages, and which distinguish a Cotswold barn from all others.

Tim concludes by pointing out that William Morris, the pioneering designer and social activist who founded SPAB, said that he would like a house like a big barn, where one ate in one corner, cooked in another corner, slept in the third corner and in the fourth received one's friends.

This, says Tim, is understandable and still being achieved by a number of people.

  • Cotswold Barns is published by Tempus Publishing Ltd at £17.99 and is available at all good local bookshops. It can be ordered directly by going to www.tempus-publishing.com