This year has seen Hampshire County Council build a Roundhouse 30 on their wartime farm as well as Hasty’s Adventure Farm and Matlock Farm Park utilising Roundhouses for their children’s play areas.
First opened as a farm museum in 1984, Manor Farm was the location for the historical documentary TV series ‘Wartime Farm’, broadcast by the BBC in 2012.
In 2019 Manor Farm became home to a Roundhouse livestock building. The Roundhouse gets its roots from The Bronze Age where it was used as the “family home” but today, Manor Farm’s 30 metre diameter building, made of galvanised steel and with a high tensile fabric roof, is the very latest in innovation. Visitors can climb the stairs to a bespoke gantry and look down on the animals that are held in eight separate pens.
This is the fourth viewing gantry we have installed and the feedback has been excellent for every one.
Both Matlock Farm Park and Hasty’s Adventure Farm have built Roundhouses to house their children’s play areas. Both businesses recognised the benefits of the free-flowing air and the sun and rain protection, meaning their play areas could have year-round usage. The appearance of the building itself is also something that is regularly commented on, especially by the children who have likened it to a UFO.
In Lincolnshire, a Roundhouse that houses deer, has recently been used for a craft and artisan market with over 50 stalls in and around the building. The first market was a roaring success with lots of public commenting on what a great space the roundhouse is and plans are afoot for more markets throughout the year.
It’s not just in the UK that Roundhouses are doing well. With the Roundhouse blueplan the businesses Dutch Partners have built two timber Roundhouses in Holland and are about to erect the first 45 metre Roundhouse in timber. In England there is a timber Roundhouse with planning approval in Essex and one already in use in Somerset.
Twenty years in and continuing to evolve and find new purposes, the Roundhouse truly has made its mark as a revolutionary building.