Britain's southernmost hut sold in rare deal

The BBC is reporting that one of the 20 granite huts on Les Minquiers (about 10 miles south of Jersey) has been bought by a Jersey company in an undisclosed six figure deal handled by Jersey law firm Viberts. Described as the size of a garden chalet and usually handed down within families, they only come up for sale at an average of about once a decade - some have not appeared on the market at all since they were first constructed in the 19th century.

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The return of the Anderson shelter

A cracking article by David Lavelle in The Guardian looks at the rise in popularity of the Anderson shelter and points out that "restoring air raid shelters has become a niche hobby with people repurposing them as sheds or outdoor studies". Here's a snippet:

The survival of Anderson shelters is not only due to their sturdy structure. Millions of families took refuge in them during the war and told their stories to succeeding generations, preserving them in our cultural imagination, too. “I think the Anderson shelter is an icon because so many people had them,” Liz Johnson says. “They figure in many wartime novels and films. I think they do appeal to our den-building fascination.” The shelters are also one of the few relics of the period that can still be utilised. They are an effective and fun way of educating young children about the realities of the home front, and many people are still putting them to good use in their gardens. Johnson says she intends to keep her shelter for as long as she owns her house and has plans to develop the inside as a sleep-out space for her children.

Photo courtesy Martin Stanley's site Anderson Shelters which is mentioned in the article and is indeed a marvellous introduction to the subject. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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Cressida Cowell's holiday writing shed

My writing shed in France has a banana tree growing through the window pic.twitter.com/XlTO3upH7y

— Cressida Cowell (@CressidaCowell) August 20, 2018

Not too shabby. ------------------------------------------

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Garden office with bathroom

This 5m x 3m garden office with large sliding door in Muswell Hill, London, by eDEN Garden Rooms is a combination build, designed and constructed by eDEN in collaboration with the clients' own contacts who carried out the groundwork, bathroom/wetroom installation and plumbing . The bathroom is a useful addition for any shedworker but was also included in case the garden room is used for non-office space in the future. "Designs were kept within permitted development rights so no planning permission was required," says eDEN's Mia Walmsley, "with fire retardant panels being added to the boundary-facing elevations to ensure compliance." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Annual holidays

The Shedworking staff have awarded themselves a holiday and scarpared off to the seaside for a paddle, a nice sit down in a beach hut, and an ice cream. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

Cynan Jones: Shedworker

Author Cynan Jones (The Dig, Cove, The Edge Of The Shoal, BBC National Short Story Award Winner) lives and works in Aberaeron, Wales. He is also a shedworker. Here's how he describes his working environment to electric literature:

"I have a shed. I came home to write from Glasgow where I’d been working for five years as a copywriter. I promised myself I’d come home when I was twenty-eight and give myself two years to write a book. I lived in a shed in my Mum’s garden, which I still work in. I also built a writing room into our house. They are sacrosanct places. No one else goes in them. There’s nothing particular I have to have (other than pens, blank paper and a window) but I am incredibly protective of my writing space."

He also lives in a log cabin which he built himself. Here's what he told the BBC:

"When I am in need of inspiration for my writing, I step out of mother's shed and walk 50 metres to the edge of a cliff where I can be immersed in this extraordinary Cardigan Bay landscape," says Jones."

There's an excellent podcast of him recorded last month talking about "'the square mile' in Welsh culture, the experience of re-telling stories, and the spark that sends him to the writing shed to get a pending novel down on the page" at the Royal Literary Fund site here.

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Kudvha makes Wood Awards 2018 shortlist

The excellent Wood Awards which aims 'to recognise, encourage and promote outstanding design, craftsmanship and installation using wood' has announced its 2018 shortlist. Among them is the marvellous wilderness cabin Kudvha, designed by New British Design.

Kudhva means ‘hideout’ in Cornish and these cabins in Tintagel, Cornwall, are the start of a larger project looking at micro architecture. Ideal as an off-grid shedworkingesque office, they each sleep two, are 7m tall, and are made from pine, larch, rubber, steel and glass.

Here's what the judges say about it in the shortlisting:

The Kudhva are a physical manifestation of the client’s approach to natural living. The cabins are made predominately from wood, chosen to act as a lightweight counter to the site’s industrial past. The natural habitat is ecologically rich, therefore the cabins have been designed to touch lightly on the land. The cabins have been designed to be totally off-grid and are temporary structures that can be moved around the site or removed in years to come.

Best of all you can stay in one and here's an account of what it's like.


Kudhva: Installation/Occupation Edit#2 from ben huggins on Vimeo. ------------------------------------------

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