20 years ago | Chamberlains Farm, Shevington Moor, UK | 12th March 2004

Twenty years ago, we were at the beginning of the process of converting a barn into a family home. The plans had been drawn up and approved, the builders appointed and the timescales agreed. By mid-March, it was time for things to start happening.

The first task was to clear out the barn to a basic shell. We’d emptied all the stuff it once held but next, we had to lift the huge York stone slabs from the floor. Weighing in at about a quarter of a tonne each, we needed some proper machinery to get the job done. While the biggest pieces weren’t moved very far (they now form the footpaths on front of the houses), the rest needed to be moved further out of the way, for use elsewhere.

And so that’s why it was that I now have several photos of a JCB parked in what’s now the living room of our house. With a tractor-mad child in the house for much of our time here, we’ve tended to have a lot of toy diggers, excavators and telehandlers around the place. But the very first one to clutter up the floor was a full-sized one…