The Bridle

Welcome to The Bridle – our brand-new Barns & Yard blog! We hope this will become a place where brides (and grooms!) to-be can come for helpful tips and tricks, industry insights and of course, updates about what’s going on here at Barns & Yard.

At B&Y we love to plan and we hope during these unusual times, this blog can provide an escape, inspiration and excitement for the future.

Firstly, a note on our blog name – it’s not that we can’t spell! As some of you may know, our Tudor barns were the original farmyard of Hanley Hall. Their last use was as an equestrian facility, whose owner, Hilda Lorna Johnstone MBE, who was an Olympic dressage rider. She represented Great Britain in the 1956, 1968 and 1972 Olympic Games, and at the latter (aged 70!), became the oldest ever female, British competitor to take part in the Olympic Games.

After her rein (pun intended) the barns were locked up and unloved for over 30 years. Our first peek into the almost derelict barns revealed saddles and bridles, trophies, medals and hundreds of horseshoes, all hanging as they were left all those years ago. We’d like to think that Mrs Johnstone would be happy with the new lease of life that the Barns now have, and hence our aptly named blog!

So to start our blog off – we thought we’d share some photographs of our giant renovation project.

Images taken by Julien de Bock

To all our brides and grooms, especially those that should have been getting married around now – our hearts go out to you. Planning a wedding can be daunting even in normal times, rest assured, for everyone that has had to change their date, or is considering doing so, we at B&Y will do everything we can to ensure your perfect wedding day, whatever date that may now be, we will be creative, we will be flexible and above all we will look after you and ensure your dreams do come true.

As a new venue we were so excited for our first full season, and like many others Covid-19 has been detrimental for our business, so we are keen to re-open our big barn doors as soon as possible. We have been speaking to many of our couples over the past months and weeks, and will be continuing to do so as we wait for further clarity about what is to come in the following months.

Finally, we want to thank all our couples for being fabulous! You have all been so understanding, supportive and brave – we secretly knew we were attracting the best couples and you have confirmed this in buckets! We look forward to each and every one of your weddings.

We hope this blog provides some sort of respite from the surrounding world, so you can escape to wedding planning bliss – we have lots of exciting ideas so watch this space!

Lots of Love,

The Yard Girls!