I attended a board meeting of the Somerset Building Preservation Trust held at the Heritage Centre, Taunton. Afterwards we had a progress report on Glastonbury’s Abbey Barn, now three months into the new £2.3million development project.

  Little work has been carried out at the Abbey Barn for more than 40 years, and the museum, judged outdated, is being modernized and renovated. The new reception area will be via the original Victorian farmhouse entrance.

  The work is being carefully undertaken, keeping as many of the original features as possible — such as the mullion windows and timbers. A large open gallery space will be installed upstairs and a new cafe with facilities in the old cowshed downstairs. Also in the plan is a much-needed lift.

  Little will change outside, but the wagon shed will become an educational indoor learning space with glass frontage.

  The work is progressing well, with good reports of the contractors who have an experienced understanding of working with old buildings. Unexpected difficulties have been overcome and these needed additional planning permission. Existing walls of outbuildings in the rear yard need strengthening to bear new loading, and dips in the ground need to be levelled.

  The project is expected to be completed in December 2015 for the museum to reopen its doors in 2016.

  We were shown an old photograph of the Mapstone’s dairy shorthorn cows plodding back from the Actis fields to be milked — this brought back nostalgic memories of the 1950s, when I first came to Glastonbury.

  Meanwhile, the Friends of the Abbey Barn organization continues to function with meetings and newsletters.