Plankbridge Book of Huts
Welcome Plankbridge make huts. You will find several variations within this Book of Huts, and we relish bespoke projects too. The core of what we do is the shepherd’s hut - an iconic portable shelter, used for centuries up to its heyday in the Victorian era. We revived the shepherd’s hut as a useful contemporary space just after the Millennium. Plankbridge is owned and run by Richard Lee and Jane Dennison. Richard’s training at international furniture designer John Makepeace’s pioneering Hooke Park College, and Jane’s experience and knowledge of the ancient and interesting combined to form Plankbridge. Hutmaking as a distinct craft is a new discipline – if you’d searched on the internet for hutmakers when we started, nothing would have come up. Plankbridge is unrivalled (although some have tried) in its experience, passion for the heritage of the originals and its desire to create the best and most contemporary huts possible. Please take a look through this Book of Huts; we hope you will find it inspiring, and see that we love what we do. Do get in touch if you would like to know more.
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‘Now that we are proud owners, I feel that we belong to the Plankbridge family.’
The Classic Plankbridge Shepherd’s Hut
The shepherd’s hut as we know it today started life in the Victorian era. On the South Downs of England large flocks of sheep were folded with hazel hurdles, fertilising the ground as they went. The shepherd would also tend to his ewes at lambing time. His basic and much-needed shelter would have been a shepherd’s hut. The iconic metal cladding and curved roof developed soon after the invention of corrugated iron by Henry Palmer and Richard Walker in the 1840’s. Plankbridge have been making and restoring shepherd’s huts for many years, inspired by an original hut that stood by the drove on the way to Thomas Hardy’s cottage near Dorchester. Sure that the shape and size could be utilised for a wide range of modern day uses, Richard and Jane set about making their first hut using an old set of wheels. Today Plankbridge have the country’s leading team of hutmaker craftsmen making home offices, artist’s studios, extra bedrooms and holiday ventures. Customers include The National Trust, Kate Humble’s farm in Monmouthshire and St James’s Church, Piccadilly. The Plankbridge shepherd’s hut is based closely on Victorian originals. We have a wonderful set of blueprints from the Dorchester firm of Lott & Walne, and our classic huts closely follow the proportions of these plans, and those of other local firms such as Farris of Shaftesbury and Reeves of Bratton. Within the classic form of the original huts the contemporary structure is fully insulated and lined with breather membrane and vapour barrier. The huts have one foot firmly in the past and one very much in the present.
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‘Just to say our hut is beautiful, we are so happy with it, thank you! The colours are perfect too; we are really thrilled!’
Taken at Wriggly Tin Huts, vintage camping.
‘The hut has been much admired by the many hundreds of visitors to the garden.’
The Plankbridge hut has a 75mm insulated cavity throughout, a development of which any Victorian shepherd would have been glad. We use Earthwool fleece as standard, a breathable carbon-neutral insulation made from 80% recycled bottles.
Our windows are made from Douglas fir grown on The National Trust’s Stourhead Estate. They are double-glazed and have lead flashing all around, dressed over the exterior cladding for a weather-tight seal.
‘We are getting immense amounts of pleasure out of our hut. We tend to sit around in it admiring every little detail.’
The Riverkeeper’s Hut
Richard’s great grandfather was a riverkeeper for a while on the Frome in Dorset. There is a wonderful photograph of him sitting outside a fishing hut by the famous chalkstream, holding a large salmon. With double doors to the side, glazed in the top half, our Riverkeeper’s Hut makes the best of a superb view, be it a river, lake, garden, valley or even the sea. As with all Plankbridge huts, windows can be positioned to suit you. Single, double, triple and even quadruple windows let in the light or highlight a view perfectly. The double doors are usually stable doors, so the bottom half can be left closed and the glazed top halves opened. We have delivered Riverkeeper’s Huts all over the country and they are in use as studios, home offices, reading rooms and actual fishing huts, providing shelter when the weather turns, or somewhere to sit and tie a fly. The classic 12’ length of all our huts can be increased to 14’ or even 16’ long. An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty officer said that our huts had ‘no visual impact in the landscape.’ They sit well anywhere.
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‘The workmanship is so perfect! Everything is finished to such a high standard. All the materials are excellent quality.’
We also clad our huts in a range of timber, such as larch, Douglas fir and oak.
‘The hut is fantastic, I love it. It’s a great workspace and all my colleagues are very envious of my office.’ Justin Whitehouse, Head Ranger, The Lizard, The National Trust.
We are dependable and reliable, true to the spirit of the Victorian Dorset hutmakers. We keep our word and deliver huts that are built to last, steeped in the heritage of Dorset’s rural past. We are faithful to our customers, to ourselves and our colleagues, to the huts we make and to the landscape we inhabit. Plankbridge core values
The Island Bothy
There are a few unwritten rules about the shepherd’s hut: traditionally it had a single stable door at the end, set to one side with a woodburner on the right. These are important details - ask any enthusiast at a steam fair or countryman worth his salt and they would point out that a shepherds hut has its wheels outside the body of the hut and the door at the opposite end to the steering plate axle with the smaller wheels. On a living van the wheels would be under the sides and the door centred on the steering end. When a variation evolves we have to find a new name - it’s not a shepherd’s hut any more. The first hut we built with a single door on the side was delivered to a private island with the help of two landing craft and six Royal Marines. It seemed fitting to call this version the Island Bothy. An Island Bothy offers useful space at both ends. For example, it could accommodate a double bed at one end and two bunks at the other, or perhaps a built-in desk and filing cabinets to create an office or studio. As with all these things, proportion is key. If the door isn’t in just the right place it won’t look right. Just a smidge either way makes all the difference.
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From Roger Deakin’s ‘Wildwood, A Journey Through Trees’. ‘...it is such another world in there that anything is possible. Lift your face to a porthole and you can survey the green waters of Cowpasture meadow coming up to meet you as you voyage across doldrums of Sargasso buttercups in lazy pools, or navigate towards the beacon of a solitary green-winged orchid.’ (Used with the kind permission of the Roger Deakin estate)
One of our experienced hutmakers oversees each hut build, with input from other specialists in the team.
Our hut wheels are cast at a Somerset foundry to our own patterns, using EN GJL 220 cast iron.
All interior tongue and groove panelling is pre-painted with Farrow & Ball paint before being slotted together. As the wood naturally shifts over time, it will never reveal any bare timber.
Our hut floors are solid character grade French oak (Forest Stewardship Council certified as sustainably harvested), screwed, plugged and finished in specialist flooring oil.
Attention to detail is so important at Plankbridge. We line up the slots in our solid brass screws vertically.
The windows on a Plankbridge hut are all fitted with our unique traditional welded lead trays.
‘‘The outskirts of this level water meadow were diversified by rounded and hollow pastures, where just now every flower that was not a buttercup was a daisy. The river slid along noiselessly as a shade, the swelling reeds and sedge forming a flexible palisade upon its moist brink.’’ From ‘Far From The Madding Crowd’ by Thomas Hardy. This meadow lies alongside Plankbridge HQ.
The Dorset Roulotte
For a long time we have been aware of French Roulottes, which appear in many different forms. The Roulotte de bergere was the French version of a shepherd’s hut and was often little more than a covered handcart to shelter the shepherd. Much larger showman’s and gypsy portable homes were more showy, with brightly painted timber panelling and elaborate detailing. Following our instinct to build a larger portable structure, we created the Dorset Roulotte. In theory these could be any size, but we start ours at 16’ long by nearly 8’ wide. The body of a Roulotte is set over the wheels, and can be designed to suit different requirements. The basic version has a 12’ long body with French doors opening onto a 4’ wide covered decking area. As with all our huts we can clad the exterior in corrugated metal or timber. This could be the incredibly durable Siberian larch, oak left to weather to silver, or painted timber. A Roulotte has the potential for a slightly more adventurous colour scheme - or you may prefer a more subtle muted appearance. The Roulotte is very much a bespoke design: anything is possible.
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The timber for these Roulotte doors is English and French oak, all FSC certified and traceable to the actual tree.
A Plankbridge wood burner, with glass door and firebricks, is kitemarked and ideal for a small space.
Doors have solid brass hinges, slotted screws, five lever mortise lock and a hand-forged Suffolk latch.
Bespoke Projects
Within the portable footprint of the basic design a shepherd’s hut can be anything you want it to be. Office, artist’s studio, holiday let, sauna, library, even a place to tend your sheep. Over the years we have been approached to create lots of unusual variations. For a lady near Salisbury we built a hybrid hut, with long windows similar to a railway carriage and natural timber cladding that will weather to silver. We have converted a Great Western Railway Lamp Hut, originally used to store flammables away from the station buildings. We kept the shabby chic exterior and completely modernised the inside with gas hob, sink and a walk-in shower, all powered by an LPG-fired water heater. New-build Lamp Huts make an excellent alternative to the shepherd’s hut. They are mounted on skids, not wheels. We also offer our ‘Junzi’ grade of hut, which is very high specification and bespoke, lined perhaps with English hardwood tongue-and-groove and stitched leather upholstery. Renovations fit into the bespoke category too. We have restored many huts for customers over the years, and that is truly the best way to learn the art of hutmaking. We are open to anything, so any madcap conversions or new designs that you have in mind, run them past us. We are more than happy to help.
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We manage Waterston Springs, the original home of Plankbridge, as a small wetland nature reserve, and were delighted when part of it became a Site of Nature Conservation Interest.
The Humble Hideaway in Monmouthshire boasts both a classic shepherd’s hut and restored GWR lamp hut, used as a separate bathroom and kitchen. We have also had restoration commissions from The Dorset Wildlife Trust and Chawton House, home of Jane Austen’s brother. Other bespoke projects include fitting huts with extra, larger windows.
We enjoy rising to a challenge and are happy to quote for any bespoke ideas.
We were asked to recreate the roof and timber chassis of a Victorian hut, with horse drawn shafts, to be used in scenes from the new Far From The Madding Crowd feature film. Restored Living Van. Photo: The Kingcombe Centre
Sunday morning delivery - craning in the new drop-in centre to the garden of St James’s Church Piccadilly, in central London.
Not a classic hut, but large windows may suit an artist’s studio or wildlife hide.
The Writer’s Hut
They say small is beautiful, and we’ve had very good reactions to the Writer’s Hut. At 8’ long by 5’ wide it is much smaller than a classic hut, and very useful as somewhere for one person to retreat to for some quiet time, or to paint or write. We have fitted them with desks and cupboards, and electrics too. In 2012 we commissioned leading designers Woolcott and Smith to create The Plankbridge Shepherd’s Hut Garden for the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Being a small artisan garden Richard designed a scaleddown version of our classic hut, but one that kept the all-important proportions just right. It was quite a challenge in every way, but a hugely enjoyable experience which resulted in a Silver medal. The steam-bent oak ceiling ribs, and the curved top to the door make the Writer’s Hut something even more special. It fits into quite a small space too, ideal perhaps for replacing a dull garden shed. Owing to the global reach of Chelsea, the Writer’s Hut has been seen - and admired - on television and in publications throughout the world.
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‘Jean has been the proud owner of a Plus 8 Morgan for more than 30 years and says she feels the same care and pride in design construction has been invested in her hut.’ Photo: Adam Batterbee
Our huts are widely used as home offices. Designed to suit individual requirements, they create a comfortable and stress-free environment.
Photo: Adam Batterbee
We discovered Valtti paint from Finland many years ago, and were impressed that it is used in harsh conditions such as RNLI lifeboat stations and in industrial situations.
We won a silver medal at the 2012 RHS Chelsea Flower Show for our Plankbridge Shepherd’s Hut artisan garden.
The Writer’s Hut fits well in any garden.
Finally Hutmaking is a craft - a distinct craft which incorporates joinery, furniture making, blacksmithing and other artisan disciplines. Our hutmaking is steeped in tradition and we couldn’t make our huts without absorbing ourselves in their heritage and values. When you get inside a Plankbridge hut you can really feel the world it has come from. Modern comfort sits seamlessly within a feeling of the past. Your hut can be anything you want it to be, but will always be part of a strong heritage of craftsmanship and tradition. We’ve extended our concept of traditional craftsmanship for contemporary living to a very wide range of huts. Whether we are delivering large orders of six or more huts for a holiday venue or an individual hut to satisfy a long dreamt of art studio in the garden, our specialist team works with attention to detail and great skill. Just because it isn’t in this book, doesn’t mean we don’t do it. We are not just an ‘off-the-shelf’ maker - we relish the personal ideas that make your hut unique. Please get in touch to discuss your ideas. We would be very pleased to show you around the Plankbridge workshop, or do refer to our website for videos, photographs and lots of information.
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Our extensive experience of all kinds of deliveries has taken us throughout the UK, from Cornwall to Norfolk, Jersey to Scotland. We have even taken huts to Switzerland, Ireland and the French Alps.
At River Cottage HQ.
My huts are not only beautifully, cleverly thought out, they are so perfectly executed and surpass all my expectations! You have utterly transformed the lamp hut into a light, airy, practical space that feels remarkably spacious. The original exterior has been kept in all its shabby glory, making the interior a completely unexpected surprise. Together with the shepherd’s hut it makes our little hideaway not only comfortable, but unique. Thank you Richard, Jane and the whole team for a really fantastic job. Kate Humble
01300 348414 enquiries@plankbridge.com
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Plankbridge Hutmakers The Grain Store, Carters Barn Farm, Piddlehinton, Dorchester, Dorset, DT2 7TH
Plankbridge brochure designed by Wallis Agency www.wallisagency.co.uk 01305 213709