The Cyder Bar,
The Newt in Somerset

The brief

Apples are at the heart of The Newt in Somerset. Its orchards hold dozens of varieties, The Parabola walled garden is planted with hundreds of heritage apple trees, and the cyder made on the estate is one of the great pleasures of a visit, from tours of the cyder press to tastings in the gardens.

We first built The Cyder Bar in 2018 to serve that cyder to visitors exploring the gardens, with a small coffee operation alongside. Demand for coffee soon outgrew it, and after a few seasons it was clear the estate needed a larger bar, one that could serve coffee at real volume while keeping cyder at its heart.

Built for the outdoors

Standing in the open beside the cyder press, every part of the bar had to cope with the Somerset weather through every season. We built it entirely in stainless steel, from the underbar and back bar to the carcass, the bartop and the tiled fronts.

Heat traced plumbing runs throughout, keeping the water flowing in the coldest months. We also took on the cyder dispense and the M&E works, with Cantilever as main contractor, so the whole bar was delivered by one team.

Designing the workstation

Two fully equipped coffee stations are arranged around a central cyder dispense. The coffee queue is shared across two points of service, while the cyder remains the focal point of the bar.

Behind them, a back counter brings together refrigeration, soup wells and heated drawers for baked goods, so the bar works as a complete food and drink counter for visitors to the gardens.