We are all very excited as the RHS have accepted a design for a Plankbridge show garden at next years Chelsea flower show.  It's the first time a shepherd's hut has been seen at Chelsea, and we are working up something really special.  The designers Woolcot and Smith, who have created show gardens several times before, have created an amazing design inspired by Dorset.  Lots of planning and thinking ahead to do before next May.

Yesterday we loaded a hut onto a low loader trailer and sent it to Gruyere, Switzerland.  It was an old hut, which we did some work to six years ago.  The owner decided to sell it, so we took out the large four poster bed we put in, fitted a woodburner and it was snapped up by an Englishman living in Gruyere.  The hut originally lived in Cuckoo Wood locally, and was a bit of a local landmark.  The hut has quite a history, and we hope it is well used in Gruyere.

We were very pleased to be featured this week on the Financial Times 'How to spend it' website which features a very wide range of top quality products.   

We enjoyed an afternoon with John Craven and the Countryfile team last week, who spent the afternoon filming at our place, interviewing a lady whose father used to be a shepherd in Dorset and used a shepherds hut whilst lambing.  They then filmed at our workshop at Piddlehinton, finding out why we started making shepherds' huts 11 years ago, and looking at some of our new builds including a current one which has a Finnish sauna at one end.  It was good to meet John, having grown up with Multi coloured swap shop, Newsround, Screentest and Countryfile since it's slot on a Sunday lunchtime.  Apparently he has been on television every week since 1971.

 

Plankbridge feature in today's Country Life (27th July), in an article about unusual garden rooms from yurts to shepherds huts.  There is a huge picture of us and friends outside our hut one stormy evening.  The photographer took hundreds of photos and it was the last 2 or 3 which captured the best light of the evening.  Really interesting to watch a professional photographer at work.