In the last few months, the team here at A.W. Hardy has been busy converting the shell of an old farm building at Barleylands Farm Park near Billericay into a purpose-built childcare facility for their tenant, Farm Day Nursery, which already runs several established children’s day nurseries around the country and wanted to expand into this popular pocket of Essex.
Working alongside Ashley Allington at Joseph James Project Services Ltd and the architects at Munday + Cramer Architectural Services Ltd to bring this important structure to life, we partly demolished the farmhouse building, stripping the cladding and roofing but retaining the steel frame ready for the refurbishment works.
A new external wall was constructed, and roof panels were installed to modern standards. We were careful to retain their distinctive barn timber cladding appearance to ensure they were in keeping with the property’s original style.
Various spaces were created inside, including:
One of the priorities for Farm Day Nursery is its outside play experience, so we needed to pay extra attention to the exterior grounds. Many of the rooms have easy access to the outside play area, which includes artificial grass and play equipment. This space is set amongst the existing trees and bounded by new fencing for safety reasons.
Towards the end of the build process, we were asked by the nursery if the premises could be opened to prospective customers for viewing. We facilitated this after work hours on several Fridays and some Saturday mornings, which the client very much appreciated.
We were delighted to be involved with the project and are pleased that the building process ran to programme and budget.