Transforming a barn into a wedding venue, accommodation — or both — can be a nice little earner, finds Arabella Youens.
As a way of generating income for country-house owners, all-singing, all-dancing party barns have mushroomed in popularity over the past 20 years. Tom and Clarissa Astor moved into Merriscourt, a 17th-century Cotswold farmhouse in 500 acres surrounded by barns and pigsties near Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, more than 20 years ago.
At first, they…
