If you farm in Midlothian, the Borders or Fife and you type “agricultural sheds Scotland”, most results are either a national kit warehouse or an Edinburgh fabricator talking to architects. Forge & Frame sits in the middle on purpose: a Penicuik workshop that cuts farm steel every week, and a trade desk that still prices RSJs. This page is the farm door.
The offer is narrow. We design and fabricate a hot-rolled portal. We clad it to the spec you asked for. We ship a kit anywhere in the UK, or we stand it with our own crews across the Central Belt. We do not pour the slab. We do not sell cubicles, grain dryers or a cladding-merchant catalogue. If that sounds blunt, it is meant to be — farmers bounce when a site pretends to be a turnkey farm contractor.
What “agricultural sheds Midlothian” actually means here
Midlothian is home ground. The shop is Unit 2B, Eastfield Industrial Estate, Penicuik, EH26 8HA. A holding on the Pentland edge, a yard at West Linton, or a machinery court outside Pathhead is a same-week conversation, not a call-centre lead. Snow and wind on those ridges are not Home Counties defaults. We size the frame for the site you photograph, not a brochure span.
From that same shop we also cut steel barn frames for the Borders and livestock buildings aimed at Fife. The language changes with the holding; the steel does not. Kit farm sheds leaving Penicuik for Aberdeenshire or Cumbria are the same EXC2 members a Central Belt crew would lift.
Two buying routes, one workshop
Kit. Columns, rafters, purlins, bolts and assembly drawings on a wagon. You or a local erector stand it. Best when you already have a telehandler and a competent crew, or when the postcode is outside our erection radius.
Supply-and-fit. Same kit, our CSCS crews, Central Belt first. We coordinate the lift. Your groundworks contractor still owns the concrete. Foundations are never inside the steel number.
Standard bays are the ones we cut without drama: spans 12, 15, 18, 21 and 24 m; eaves 4, 5, 6 and 7 m; bay centres usually 4.5–6 m. Walk the field in feet if that is how you think — we convert. Odd sizes are fine; they cost a day in detailing, not a redesign of the company.
Use, not a catalogue
Machinery and general-purpose barns want a clear span and a roller door you can reverse a tractor through. Livestock housing wants galvanising that survives ammonia, and air — Yorkshire boarding or a vented ridge — not a sealed tin. Hay and straw want height. Grain wants a stiffer door and frame story than a straw shed. Lean-tos want a photo of the existing eaves. Those five uses sit on the form. Pick one.
Planning in Scotland is usually Class 18 prior notification on a qualifying holding, not a full application and not a free-for-all. We issue drawings for your agent. We are not planning consultants. FFIS does not fund sheds, roofs or concrete. The Crofting Agricultural Grant Scheme can fund buildings for eligible crofters. Read that twice before you put grant money in the cashflow.
How a farmer starts
Width, length, eaves, use, postcode, phone photo of the ground. That is the brief. Not a DWG. We price it in 24 hours. Indicative market bands live on the cost page; they are not a price list. The money page at portal frames and sheds carries bay logic, farm spec and the same form. The 3D tool is a farm front door — design your farm shed — not an RSJ take-off.
Call 0131 496 0777 if you would rather talk than type. WhatsApp a photo to the same number. Email info@ff-steel.co.uk if that is how the holding works. Tag the message as a farm shed so it does not sit in the builder pile.