NEWSLETTER 6


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Some five years ago Hege had a part time job in Cirencester selling cheese in a delicatessen.  One day, passing Cirencester College on the way home, she called in, to enquire about further education, hoping in time to escape the tedium of shop work.  (She had been expelled from her private school at 17 for idleness). Two days later she started as a late entrant on an access course.  
This led to a three year joint degree at Bristol University in Archeology and Geology where she got a 2.1. Last Christmas she added an MA (with distinction) and was accepted as a PhD student. She is now embarking on a five year study involving the analysis of stable isotopes in the teeth of animals of the Neolithic era. This may lead to a better understanding of the migratory pattern of both wild and domesticated beasts.
What she wanted was a shed at the end of the garden where the telephone never rings and the “Do not disturb” sign would transport her from the daily domestic and business pressures.  After slightly more than two years construction she now has her “shed”.  It is not quite what she had in mind but is has been enormous fun to construct.  It is based on the traditional granary found in most parts of England.  
They were built on staddle stones to lift them off the ground and keep the rats out.  They usually had internal divisions to separate the barley from the wheat etc.  The Romans built similar structures and called them Horrea.  It was designed “on the hoof” from sketches on the back of a Tesco receipt.  We wanted to use oak cut on the farm but that turned out to be quite uneconomic.  Instead we used French oak, fitted and assembled un-seasoned.  

In my anarchic fashion it has no planning permission, so we painted it pink (red ochre) in the hope that it would merge into the landscape and avoid detection.

   Julian Usborne     May 2006