Chinese House, Stowe

The landscaped gardens at Stowe in Buckinghamshire (managed by the National Trust) are full of wonderful garden buildings, if not specifically shedworking ones. My favourite is the compact timber-framed Chinese House pictured above which was sensitively restored in 2005. It's almost certainly the earliest Chinese pavilion in the UK - which in the 18th century saw a huge interest in neo-Chinese architecture - dating from at least 1738 and probably designed by the famous architect William Kent. For those interested in restoration, there's an excellent article about it at buildingconservation.com by Rory Cullen, Nikita Hooper and Christine Sitwell.