Look into most British vehicles on their way back from France and you will find the usual stash of fine wines, smelly cheese and the odd tin of foie gras. Nose into one or two, however, and you might also find a lorry-load of antique oak-framed barn. Such is our passion for old farm buildings that some people, despairing of ever finding what they are looking for in Britain, are sourcing barns on the other side of the Channel and rebuilding them here instead.

Geoffrey Dann, 69, a semi-retired farmer from East Sussex, has done just that, and is delighted with the result. He wanted to find a timber frame to slot around the remains of a ruined 18th-century barn he was converting on land at Brede, near Rye, but drew a blank. Frazer Haywood, the timber-frame renovation firm he employed to manage the reconstruction, came up with a solution: an 18th-century oak-built grain store from rural Normandy.

“We went to France to have a look around, and the barn just caught our eye, so we went to see the farmer,” says Jason Wright, a director with the firm, based in Westfield, a few miles from Dann’s farm. “He had been trying to find a way of restoring the barn for a couple of years, and was almost at the point of cutting it down and burning it.”

Instead, Haywood bought the barn, dismantled it — carefully labelling every piece — and brought it back to Britain, where it was merged with the remnants of the existing barn.

The result, says Dann, is the ideal four-bedroom home for his daughter, Karen, 36, her boyfriend, Nathan Jones, 34, and their children, George, 2, and Harry, aged three months. The total build cost was £250,000 — of which £170,000 went on buying and rebuilding the barn, and associated joinery.

“It’s the look of the thing,” says Dann. “Old oak sets it off better than new. And old beams give it an historic feel. It’s a job to find old timbers in this country any more.”

From the outside, their new home is English in style, with feather-edge boards on the walls and a tiled roof, but the glories of the French oak are on display throughout the interior. Even the king pins (the main vertical posts), which were not needed for the main structure, are visible within the interior walls.

Wright says most people’s motivation for reconstructing an old barn rather than building from scratch is aesthetic. “Old timbers are more stable and seasoned,” he says. “Plus, people just like the idea — it is nice to have something that has been around for a long time.”

Subject to receiving planning permission, you can also put your piece of history where you want it: useful if the barn is to be turned into a garage or a pool house that needs to blend in with another old property.

Finding a British barn that can be moved in this way may be difficult: many are listed, and it is rare for permission for dismantling to be granted. Even when a barn is not protected, such is the thirst for those with development potential that competition among would-be buyers is usually fierce.

“If someone has a barn over here, they will convert it and sell it,” says Sylvester Stankovitch of Artisan Oak Buildings, a Kent-based specialist in reclaimed oak that also sells barns.

Across the Channel, stocks of barns are more plentiful and less regulated. Traditionally, the French have preferred stone barns, although there are signs this could be changing.

“In rural France, there are so many disused farm buildings, it is like a generation ago in England,” says David Ackers, an interior architect and consultant with BCA Matériaux Anciens, a French company that sources antique materials. “In theory, you still need permission to demolish these buildings, but they are perhaps more relaxed on the ground in rural areas of France than they would be in the UK.”

Before going ahead with any project, you must first find a suitable site and make sure that you will be able to obtain the necessary planning permission — challenging enough if you are converting an existing barn, let alone shipping one over in pieces from France.

Then you must find the barn itself. While some companies source them for specific projects, frames can also be bought from existing stocks. For example, Antique Buildings, a specialist in ancient oak-framed buildings based in Godalming, Surrey, is selling Favrolles barn, an early 17th-century Normandy farm building 96ft x 21.5ft x 25ft, for £85,000 (excluding Vat).

Included in the price is the frame, detailed plans and specifications and a free consultancy. The cost of the rebuild is not included, however, and will vary considerably depending on factors such as the site that is chosen and soil conditions.

Rebuilding is also a highly skilled process: care has to be taken when dismantling the structure to ensure the joints are not damaged. As part of the process, the barn should be photographed, laser levels and measurements taken, beams numbered and plans drawn up.

To keep things simple, it is usually advisable for the same team to dismantle and then reconstruct the frame. “Otherwise, you can end up with an expensive heap of firewood,” says John Langdon, the managing director of Heritage Oak Buildings, a specialist in English antique oak-framed properties.

Not everyone is keen on the idea of dismantling barns and rebuilding them hundreds of miles away from their original setting, however. “It is the worst kind of heresy as far as we’re concerned,” says Matthew Slocombe, the deputy secretary of the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. “There is a huge physical impact when you take down a building, even a timber frame — it never comes out the same as when it started.

“We also feel there’s a strong attachment between a building and its site. If it has been there for hundreds of years and you take it from its site, you’re divorcing it from its past.”

He is even more worried about moving frames across the Channel. “You are robbing France to get a building that is rather incongruous in its current context,” he says.

Frazer Haywood, 01424 757888, www.frazerhaywood.com; Antique Buildings, 01483 200477, www.antiquebuildings.com; Heritage Oak Buildings, 01798 344066, www.heritage-oak-buildings.com; Artisan Oak Buildings, 01233 740140, www.artisanoak.co.uk

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