June at The Rhynd

Jun 30
4 min read

INTRODUCING THE OLD DAIRY

It has been a busy month here at The Rhynd. The farming team has been dodging showers whilst doing silage work, the maintenance team has been flat-out in our event space extension, and I’ve been trying to get our Rhynd bookazine finished. The latter is a labour of love that will hopefully be available in August or September.

The Old Dairy event space extension is an exciting new project that we have been working on for some time. It is amazing how much work is involved trying to turn an empty shed into a useable space. The beams, for example, all needed to be painted with several coats of anti-rust paint. As you can see from the images, it was a long job. Chris was a hero and took on much of the task. I fear he never wants to see a beam again.

One of the main things I wanted to do was to incorporate the rusted tin roof that we took off the next-door shed. Despite looking like, well, rusted sheets ready for the scrapyard when they were sat in a dusty pile, they have so much life, colour and character in them. Especially when they have been cut and fitted to a neat wall with proper lighting. Lisa and I used a similar effect when we got married at Craigie. Suffice to say, there was some kickback to the idea and one couple, when shown the photos of what we were going to use, asked, “you are going to paint them, right?” I am no interior designer, but I do think that you should play to a building’s strengths – don’t try and pretend a shed is something it’s not. That’s why we kept the hay mangers in the event space, and that’s why there is an industrial feel to the Old Dairy.

The shed was originally used to milk cattle, and the glass containers – now used as lights – were in operation 60 years ago. Amazingly, someone decided to store them carefully in a nearby shed and Charlie Anderson managed to turn them into light fittings. Getting the bottom of the glass cut, so that you can get in and replace the bulb, was a tricky hurdle. The local glazier wouldn’t touch them, but suggested a company in Perth. A phone call explaining what we needed was met with positive sounds, but upon arrival, they took one look at them and said, “no chance”. Thankfully Scott Glass in Stirling came to the rescue. Sixty-minute firewalls have been built, fire doors and exits put in, and layers upon layers of paint have been used. Usefully, someone decided to paint one of the walls years ago with bitumen, which was a complete nightmare to remove. Caroline the cleaner has been in there for the past two days swearing at the mess, but the half-finished floor already looks fantastic.

After the dairy closed all those years ago the shed has been used for many things. Someone ran a car garage in there for a decade or so, and then it was briefly used as the gym before we had the space we do now. It was a disaster as it was always freezing cold, and years of concrete being added meant the floor spanned about seven different levels. It was a health-and-safety shocker. What’s more, it was so tucked away, no one could find it. The old crumbling concrete had to be removed, of course, and typically, it was over a foot thick in places. It’s been a long road to get to this point, but we hope you like it as much as we do.

One of the bits of feedback on the event space we got was that there wasn’t a dedicated ceremony room. This is our solution, but it can be used for anything, whether that is a birthday party or a crazy golf setup. Chloe and Emily are planning an open evening from 6pm to 8.30pm on Wednesday 1^st July to launch the Old Dairy, so do get in touch if you’d like to come along.

It continues to amaze me what the maintenance team here can manage – a huge thank you to them for turning an old, leaking shed into an incredible space.