COTT BARN PROJECT

 

Grant Awarded See Below

 

The photo below was taken in 1906 and shows Cott Barn when it was part of a working farm. It was used as a Milking Parlour and a Slaughter House. Cott Barn is on the right of the photo. The man leaning against the left-hand gatepost (with white sleeves) is George Bligh.

 

 

 

 

The Cott Barn Project is sometimes also referred to as The Cott Yard Project 

 

 

 

Copyright C Timms 2008

Cott Barn

 

Cott Barn is an old barn in the centre of St Neot that has been bought by the Parish Council for conversion into a Community Resource Centre. It is hoped that work will begin soon, applications have already been invited for quotations and a choice of builder will be made by the Council soon. A community Archive Room will feature as a village resource and storage area for the local history, some documents will be accepted by most information will be stored electronically on computers. The Archive Room is to be administered by a small group of locals coming mainly from the Local Historians but will be for the Parishes of St Neot, Warleggan and Cardynham.

 

The above photo shows the licence plaque for the slaughter house found in the barn during clearing-out. An attempt will be made to incorporate a number of the original features into the new renovation.

 

As can be seen by the photo on the right all of the  preliminary work  has been carried out by locals voluntarilly. However, all of the building work is being done by a professional company.

 

 

  

Copyright C Timms 2010

 

The small group of locals forming a committee to apply for a Heritage Grant to furnish the Archive Room consists of Brian Williams, Jill Thomas, John Keast, Martyn Eddy and Chris Timms.

 

The grant is being applied for through the "Your Heritage" scheme. If we are sucessful we will be able to equip the room with chairs, desks, cupboards and a range of computers, scanners, printers and other IT articles.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The ground floor on the "Cott" side of the building was still equiped as a milking parlour up to the start of the renovation. (2011).

Copyright C Timms 2009

 

PROJECT PROGRESS AND UPDATES

 

Reports of the start of work and progress made will appear here when they happen  -  Watch this space!

 

 

Further information is available on the "Council Minutes" page. 

 

Martin Eddy has just had that call from DEFRA that we've been waiting for confirming that we have a grant of £330K to build the Cott Yard Resource Centre. More info to follow when available.

 

DEFRA have offered £330,507 towards the cost of conversion of Cott Yard into a rural resource centre. In preparing the application for funding the parish council has been granted planning consent for the conversion of the barns to a rural workshop, office space for local businesses, a village archive and tourist information point and a space where people can access services. In preparing the application the parish council approached the post office, the library service and the the CAB to see if they would be prepared to work from there. The key will be to design the service area for the maximum number of uses, now and  in the future.

 

Prices contained in the application will have to be rechecked after the application took eight months to process. The project will have to start before the end of March to avoid being delayed by bats and the work will take around eight months to complete. The project is funded from DEFRA's Community and Social Enterprise Fund which is supported by European Agricultural Fund for Rural Development.