The Cruck Barn holiday cottage is not run as a profit making business; (don't give up the day job!)
We conceived the idea as a way of building up a fund for it's renovation and preservation .

We are currently applying for listed status

When we first arrived here, the cruck frame was concealed within a stud wall and had been gently but surely decaying for many, many years and may have been demolished altogether if our architect had not gleefully told us, after a foray into the then dark and cobwebby lofts, that we had something special here that should be preserved!  At close range you can see the marks of the 15th.Century joiner!

Ever since then our aim has been to restore the building to it's former simple form but to complement it with five star fixtures and fittings for maximum comfort and to add antiques and old kitchen and agricultural implements for interest and to try and keep a sense of it's history and a feel for it's beginnings as a Mediaeval cottage / barn / workshop, at different times throughout it's history.

We like to think that perhaps some of the families who lived here in those days may be watching with approval!

We also implement a full waste recycling programme.  The Cruck Barn has been here for 500 years or more, if we do our bit to look after the environment, hopefully it may stand for another 500!
We compost as much as possible, recycle nearly all household waste and give the refuse men as little as possible, (apart from a tip at Christmas!).

We air dry all washing, use green household cleaners and collect rain water in  big old oak whisky barrels,(the plants love it but we don't advise our guests to try it!) and we burn wood on  very efficient log burning stoves.

Our eggs are home produced from our own free range chickens and even the land is manured by locally produced machines - the neighbours sheep and lambs!

We hope that our guests will be encouraged by all the maps and walking books in our library area to explore the locality on foot, to take the time to wildlife spot at sites like The Cromford Canal and to bird watch in the fields and woods where you will see Curlews, Woodpeckers, Kingfishers, Owls and maybe even an Osprey at Ogston Reservoir if you are lucky.  There are badger setts in the adjoining fields and foxes are never far away!

Above all we hope that our guests have a thoroughly enjoyable, relaxing and de-stressing break in The Cruck Barn and take home with them fond memories of this little bit of rural history.