Building a replica of Roald Dahl's writing shed

A fabulously-realised project by office design and build specialists K2 Space saw them build a replica of Roald Dahl's famous writing hut for the London office of the Roald Dahl Family Company which looks after the writer's literary and creative legacy. It comes complete with a thatched roof and vintage typewriter, and is used as a meeting space within the larger office area. Do enjoy the short video below which shows how it was all done:

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Dylan Thomas's writing shed in Rooms of Their Own

Dylan Thomas died yesterday in 1953. Several of you got in touch to ask if we could mark his life and work and shedlife in some way, so here's the chapter in my recent book Rooms of Their Own on this very subject, with illustrations above from it by James Oses.

Dylan Thomas – the appeal of small rooms in Wales

Explaining how he had selected the poems of his he was about to recite for a BBC broadcast in 1949, Welsh poet and playwright Dylan Thomas said: "I decided not to choose those that strike me still as pretty peculiar, but to stick to a few of the ones that do move a little way towards the state and destination I imagine I intended to be theirs when, in small rooms in Wales, arrogantly and devotedly, I began them."

Thomas (1914 – 1953) certainly found inspiration in compact spaces. He wrote in a caravan at the end of the garden while living in a flat in Delancey Street in London; produced most of his Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog in a summerhouse in the grounds of Laugharne Castle in Wales; enjoyed the use of a summerhouse at Magdalen College in Oxford provided by his patron Margaret Taylor; and was pleased to write in the 'Apple House' outbuilding at Llanina Mansion near New Quay, Wales, owned by Lord Howard de Walden.

The most famous of his writing rooms was his last, a former garage in Laugharne built in the 1920s to house the local doctor’s green Wolseley, the first car in the town. It stands on cast iron stilts, cantilevered off the road and jutting out beyond the cliff where it overlooks the Tâf estuary below. In 1949 it was converted into a writing shed for Thomas while he and his wife Caitlin moved into their nearby home known as The Boathouse, paid for again by Margaret Taylor. “All I shall write in this water and tree room on the cliff, every word will be my thanks to you,” Thomas wrote in a letter to her.

The shed was very much Thomas’s personal sanctuary. He had windows and a stove installed, and decorated it with pictures of his favourite writers (Louis MacNeice, Lord Byron, Walt Whitman, WH Auden, and DH Lawrence), lists of words, and reproductions of art including Botticelli’s Birth of Venus and Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s The Peasant Wedding. As well as piles of paper on his desk (its legs painted red), he also liked to keep his favourite boiled sweets close at hand. There were also shelves of books although Caitlin is said to have taken out the Raymond Chandlers and other thrillers to encourage him to concentrate rather than settle in for a comfy read. Here, he wrote out everything by hand, simply throwing unwanted drafts onto the floor.

"My study, atelier, or bard's bothy, roasts on a cliff-top," wrote Dylan Thomas in a letter to his friend Hector MacIver. From this peark, it certainly afforded him fine views across Carmarthen Bay and to the Llansteffan peninslar. Through the windows he could also see St John’s Hill which features in his eponymous poem (“Over Sir John's hill/The hawk on fire hangs still”). The shed itself features most dramatically in his ‘Poem On His Birthday’ to mark his 35^th which starts “In his house on stilts high among beaks/And palavers of birds” and goes on to describe the author as “the rhymer in the long tongued room”.

Thomas also wrote “Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night” and parts of Under Milk Wood here.

His normal writing routine was as simple as his shed. In the morning he would read, write letters, or complete crossword puzzles, go for for a drink around midday at the local Brown’s Hotel, return for lunch at 1pm, then work in the shed from 2pm until 7pm. And then return to Brown’s with Caitlin for the evening. To encourage him to work, Caitlin sometimes locked him in the shed.

The shed has remained popular long after Thomas’s death. It motivated Roald Dahl to build his own writing hut to exactly the same proportions following a family trip to Wales, a recreation featured in the 2011 Chelsea Flower Show, and a pop-up replica version of the writing shed went on the road in England and Wales to mark Thomas’s 100^th birthday. After falling into disrepair, it was renovated in 2003 at a cost of £20,000 (it had cost £5 to build) and the interior is a recreation of his working environment, alongside empty beer bottles, his blue and white striped mug (copies of which are now on sale by an enterprising Welsh pottery company), and a jacket over the back of the chair.

Visiting information

The Boathouse (www.dylanthomasboathouse.com) now contains a museum dedicated to Thomas. Visitors can peek into the shed but it is closed to the public. The shed’s original doors were rescued from a council rubbish tip in the 1970s and are on display with other Thomas memorabilia in the Dylan Thomas Centre in Swansea (www.dylanthomas.com).

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Steven Mitchell: shedworker

In today's guest post we welcome writer Steven Mitchell who lives a stone's throw from Shedworking HQ. He talks us through his garden office journey.

I’m a writer, and like my childhood hero, Roald Dahl, I’ve always wanted a writing shed, and now I have one! With child number two on the way, we decided we needed a bit more space, so we started looking at new houses. One house immediately drew me in because the estate agent’s photos showed a garden office. When we went to view it, I knew this was the place. The garden office was tucked away in the back corner of the garden, half submerged in bushes, a palm tree beside the door, and in the shade of an enormous chestnut tree bulging with adolescent fruit. I imagined myself in there, furiously working on my next novel. We made an offer on the house the next day. 

Now I’ve moved into the shed, I often pause to breathe in the greenery as a breeze rustles the leaves and rain falls gently on the shed roof. It’s more peaceful than I’d imagined. I write early in the morning or late at night and I feel like I’m truly alone. I have a lovely oak desk, a comfy brown leather chair, and pictures on the wall. It’s cosy, but I’ve only experienced it in the summer so I’m bracing for autumn and winter. I’ll probably be typing in fingerless gloves, bobble hat on my head, wrapped tight in a blanket while chestnuts thunder down onto the roof. 

A fox visits the garden, a squirrel often scampers past the door, and one evening, as I returned to the house, I almost tripped over a hedgehog as it scurried across the lawn. In my second week in the shed, I heard scratching in the corner of the shed, a noise coming from outside, driving me to distraction. I stuck my head out to see a parade of wasps going in and out of a hole. Thankfully, they’ve gone, and I have my peace back. 

I’m going to do my best writing here—my award-winning work—I just know it. I wish I’d had this space when writing my first novel, Under The Moss—perhaps the boost of an inspiring place to write might have boosted sales. But it’s not just a writing shed—it’s my den. If I need a break, I have my guitars and electric drum kit (I’d love to swap it for my real one, but I have yet to convince my partner of that), which I thrash upon dreaming of being a rockstar (only one of my bands made it to Spotify (Double Handsome Dragons—check it out). 

I wish everyone could find their own space like this, and if I finally hit on the formula for writing a bestseller here, I’ll share the secret. 

And a quick plug…if you buy Under The Moss direct from my publisher’s website, they’ll plant a tree.  Or you can buy it from your favourite bookshop, and they’ll still plant a tree but maybe not a whole one.

Roald Dahl's Tales From The Yellow Door (video)

My favourite find from this year's annual Roald Dahl Day yesterday was a charming animation by animation director/writer and storyboard artist (Pixar, Aardman, Netflix) Matt Jones which I'd not come across before. Here's what he says about it:

I found footage of Dahl talking about his writing hut and creative process and thought his wonderful voice would make him the perfect narrator for an animated version. All creatives need their own writing hut; a creative space whether it’s a corner in a cafe or a private studio- it’s a place to think and dream without distraction.

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Garden offices in Rooms of Their Own

 

My new book Rooms of Their Own is published today. It looks at the rooms and spaces in which great writers write, their habits and rituals, and is beautifully illustrated by James Oses. Unsurprisingly, I've included plenty of garden offices and studios so you can enjoy a look around the workspaces of George Bernard Shaw, Roald Dahl, Mark Twain, John Steinbeck (pictured bottom), Virginia Woolf, Isabel Allende, Michel de Montaigne (bit more tower than shed arguably), EB White (pictured below), and William Wordsworth.

 

Here's the full lowdown from the publishers, Quarto.

Rooms of Their Own travels around the world examining the unique spaces, habits and rituals in which famous writers created their most notable works. 

The perennial question asked of all authors is, 'How do you write?'. What do they require of their room or desk? Do they have favourite pens, paper or typewriters? And have they found the perfect daily routine to channel their creativity? Crossing centuries, continents and genres, Alex Johnson has pooled 50 of the best writers and transports you to the heart of their writing rooms – from attics and studies to billiard rooms and bathtubs.

Discover the ins and outs of how each great writer penned their famous texts, and the routines and habits they perfected. Meet authors who rely on silence and seclusion and those who need people, music and whisky. Meet novelists who travel half-way across the world to a luxury writing retreat, and others who just need an empty shed at the bottom of the garden. Some are particular about pencils, inks, paper and typewriters, and some will scribble on anything – including the furniture. But whether they write in the library or in cars, under trees, private islands, hotel rooms or towers – each of these stories confirms that there is no 'best way' to write.

From James Baldwin, writing in the small hours of the morning in his Paris apartment, to DH Lawrence writing at the foot of a towering Ponderosa pine tree, to the Brontë sisters managing in a crowded co-working space, this book takes us into the lives of some of history's greatest ever writers, with each writing space illustrated in evocative watercolour by James Oses.

In looking at the working lives of our favourite authors, bibliophiles will be transported to other worlds, aspiring writers will find inspiration and literature fans will gain deeper insight into their most-loved authors.

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Roald Dahl's writing shed reconstruction

Roald Dahl is one of the writers we've written about most on Shedworking but here's something a bit more unusual, the recration of his writing hut for the film To Olivia that came out last year.

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Roald Dahl's writing shed in new film biopic

Out tomorrow is Sky Cinema's biopic To Olivia featuring Hugh Bonneville as Roald Dahl and Keeley Hawes as his wife Patricia Neal as they go through the heartbreak of losing their daughter. It's based on Stephen Michael Shearer's biography about Neal, An Unquiet Life and features Geoffrey Palmer in his last film appearance. If the trailer is anything to go by, then there will be plenty of footage of his recreated shed, interior and exterior.

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Maggie O'Farrell: shedworker

 

Maggie O'Farrell, author of the awardwinning Hamnet which came out earlier this year, has revealed that she wrote it largely in the shed at her home. She told the Irish Times that one of the problems with writing the novel was that it contained passages which she found uncomfortable to write, especially about a young boy dying, and wanted to wait until he was over 11 years old. Here' what she says:

“I’m not a superstitious person, but I knew that I couldn’t write this book until he had safely passed that age. I couldn’t write it in the house, where my children live. So, I wrote most of it in the shed. I don’t mean a nice cosy space like Roald Dahl had; I mean an actual dilapidated shed that was probably dangerous to be inside. I wrote it in there in short bursts, between walks around the garden."

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Outpost by Dan Richards

Not strictly a book about garden offices, nevertheless Outpost by Dan Richards will be of considerable interest to many shedworkers since he takes a close look at shedlike atmospheres including Roald Dahl's writing shed and Roger Deakins' shepherd's hut. Published by Canongate who have this to say about it:

There are still wild places out there on our crowded planet. Through a series of personal journeys, Dan Richards explores the appeal of far-flung outposts in mountains, tundra, forests, oceans and deserts. These are landscapes that speak of deep time, whose scale can knock us down to size. Their untamed nature is part of their beauty and such places have long drawn the adventurous, the spiritual and the artistic.

For those who go in search of the silence, isolation and adventure of wilderness it is - perhaps ironically - to man-made shelters that they often need to head; to bothies, bivouacs, camps and sheds. Part of the allure of such refuges is their simplicity: enough architecture to keep the weather at bay but not so much as to distract from the natural world.

Following a route from the Cairngorms of Scotland to the fire-watch lookouts of Washington State, from Iceland's 'Houses of Joy' to the Utah desert; frozen ghost towns in Svalbard to shrines in Japan; Roald Dahl's Metro-land writing hut to a lighthouse in the North Atlantic, Richards explores landscapes which have inspired writers, artists and musicians, and asks: why are we drawn to wilderness? What can we do to protect them? And what does the future hold for outposts on the edge?

Well worth considering.

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Roald Dahl hosts a tour of his writing shed

Here's an interesting video of Roald Dahl providing a tour of his garden office writing hut. We've covered him a lot on Shedworking before obviously, but this little video has just resurfaced and is well worth five lockdown minutes.

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Roald Dahl's writing shed: Miss Spider and the Hut

Here's a view of Roald Dahl's writing hut that many people will not have seen, as imagined by Ralph Steadman in the book The Roald Dahl Treasury, in ink, watercolour and acrylic with a photographic collage centrepiece. In Miss Spider and the Hut, Steadman portrays the first creature that James (of Giant Peach fame) meets on his adventures, here in mushroom fields looming above the writer's shed. Steadman said of the shed: "The room reminded me of an aeroplane cockpit. This was his creative space capsule inside which his imagination blossomed with wild, mischievous ideas."

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Roald Dahl's writing hut

It's Roald Dahl Day today so there's all sorts of Dahl-related events around the country. Naturally, it's his writing hut and garden office that we've been most interested in here on Shedworking over the years so here's a quick guide to some of the most interesting posts about him and his shedworking lifestyle:

Roald Dahl shows how to procrastinate in your garden office

 

Up close and personal inside Roald Dahl's shed

 

Roald Dahl on his writing shed (plus sausages and snooker)

 

Moving the writing hut

 

Conservation work in Roald Dahl's writing hut

 

Roald Dahl's writing shed was inspired by Dylan Thomas's writing shed

 

Roald Dahl's writing hut by Quentin Blake

 

There was a lot of fuss about moving the shed in 2011 which caused a huge rumpus and our reporting of it was noted in the Guardian by Mark Lawson. Here it is day-by-day if you want to follow it:

Controversy rages over restoration of Roald Dahl's writing shed: UPDATED

 

Dahl's shed: Day 2

 

Dahl's shed: Day 3

 

Dahl's Shed: Day 4

 

Dahl's Shed: the media U-turn 

 

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International Dylan Thomas Day

It's the annual celebrations today of one of the most famous modern shedworkers, Dylan Thomas, the view from his writing hut captured here beautifully by Uncle Wilco of readersheds.co.uk fame. Over the years we've written a huge amount about Thomas and his hut, here are some of our favourite stories:

The writing shed's doors

The mug of the writing shed

How his writing shed inspired Roald Dahl's writing shed

Inside Dylan's writing shed (video)

and you can find the entire collection by clicking here. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Roald Dahl shows how to procrastinate in your garden office (video)

Shedworker extraordinaire Roald Dahl was also a great one for delaying the start of work as long as possible. Here he is at work in the video below. Well, kind of at work.


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Roald Dahl Day

It's Roald Dahl Day today as it is every September 13 to mark his birthday. There's a huge amount of material about Roald Dahl on Shedworking as he is arguably the most famous shedworker of all time but we particularly like this photo essay about the inside of his garden office and the video below which sees him discussing the life of a shedworker.

This is wonderful. From 1982, Roald Dahl on his writing shed, work habits and loves (and snooker & sausages). pic.twitter.com/OWfBfnmpDx

— IanSanders (@IanSanders) October 18, 2017

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Matt Haig planning to become a shedworker

Gonna turn this into my Roald Dahl-esque writing shed. pic.twitter.com/bYY52W7HmS

— Matt Haig (@matthaig1) September 2, 2018

Writer Matt Haig - currently riding high in the bestsellers charts with his Notes on a Nervous Planet - has indicated on Twitter his plans to become a shedworker (he had mentioned earlier in the year to the Sunday Telegraph that his house did have a shed in which he planned to work but that his children had commandeered it). It's had, as you'd hope, a very positive response as you'll see if you click the link and see the responses which include famous and personal examples of writing sheds.

Interestingly, two years ago he told The Guardian:

Although I still have a room set aside for writing, I rarely (never) write in it. I have long fantasised about building a Roald Dahl‑style writer’s shed in the garden but I know, deep down, I would never end up going there.

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Susan Hill on garden offices

In her excellent recent literary memoir Jacob's Room is Full of Books: A Year of Reading, awardwinning writer Susan Hill (author of The Woman in Black and the Simon Serrailler detective series) talks about where she writes (or in fact doesn't write) in terms of shedworking. Here's a snippet:

Roald Dahl had a gypsy caravan in which to write. I had a shepherd's hut, but left it behind in the Cotswolds. A summerhouse went along with this Norfolk house and at first I thought it would be perfect as my new writing shed. It is not. It is the right building in the wrong place - too far from the house when you have to go back for something  vital like a different pen, or the loo, and across some very rough and often boggy ground. It faces south, which sounds lovely but at any time from late April to October it is likely to be in direct sunlight and boiling. So it is little used. I keep planning a different shed, nearer to the house, facing west.

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Roald Dahl on his writing shed (plus sausages and snooker)

This is wonderful. From 1982, Roald Dahl on his writing shed, work habits and loves (and snooker & sausages). pic.twitter.com/OWfBfnmpDx

— IanSanders (@IanSanders) October 18, 2017

A shed, snooker and sausages. That is the life. --------------------------------------------------------

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Roald Dahl Day: Moving the writing hut

It's Roald Dahl Day today, arguably the most famous modern shedworker, so we thought we'd take a look at how his hut was transferred from his garden at Gypsy House to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden (if you can get along this afternoon, entrance is free).

The work was carried out by Outside Studios. Here's what they say about it:

We built a millimetre-perfect replica of the inner writing room and hinged a whole section of the structure; when the Museum is quiet, the hut can be closed for maximum, spine-tingling impact. The gallery couldn't hold the whole hut, but the 'magic' door and aquajet-cut lino patterns mark out the full area with quotes and stories... The hut’s contents were moved forensically, right down to the dirt on the floor and the tobacco-stained polystyrene wall insulation. Every photograph, paperclip and hip bone (yes, really) was carefully recorded, checked and conserved before the display was recreated in its new, museum-grade enclosure, covered with illustrated roses setting out Roald Dahl's writing process.

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Conservation work in Roald Dahl's writing hut

The interior of Roald Dahl's writing hut and its contents were painstakingly transferred to the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre in Great Missenden in 2011 - the reconstruction was very careful indeed, including preserving the rubbish in his wastepaper bin and even the dust. To keep it in good nick, ongoing work is vital. Pictured above is the museum's archivist Rachel White, carrying out a bug inspection during a regular environmental monitoring session.

Dahl’s iconic wing-back writing chair was a Parker Knoll and thousands of people sitting in it takes its toll, so it was recently refurbished by the Parker Knoll team and  Richardsons Re-Upholstery in Chesham

And here it is, back in its usual spot.

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