We are celebrating making 700 shepherd’s huts here at Plankbridge! An amazing milestone for our talented team here in Dorset.
“It seems like a long time since Richard and I built the first ever Plankbridge hut outside our front door. Our daughter Hannah was only a baby back then and now she’s our Head of Creative! It’s wonderful to see how our team has grown, they are a talented bunch and we are proud that we can continue to keep heritage craftsmanship alive in our workshop.”
Jane Dennison, Plankbridge co-founder
Plankbridge was co-founded in 2000 by partners Richard Lee and Jane Dennison. What started in a modest workshop beside their Dorset home has now grown into one of the UK’s most respected shepherd’s hut and cabin makers, committed to honouring tradition whilst embracing innovation. As the only hutmaker to be endorsed by the Royal Horticultural Society, our huts can now be found in beautiful gardens, hospitality settings, woodlands and wild spaces across Britain and beyond.
Did you know that each of these 700 huts and cabins contains a Plankbridge time capsule? The location of each of these is a closely guarded secret within the fabric of the hut. Richard and Jane were inspired by the early days of restoring Victorian shepherd’s huts when they would find relics of the past such as an old newspaper dating back to World War 1 rolled up by a lone shepherd to plug a draught: pencil drawings of motorcars; writing on the wall by a shepherd lamenting the fact it had snowed on May 8th 1904.
Today, these contemporary time capsules contain a printed copy of the hut design and a handwritten postcard listing the craftspeople who built it, a copy of a Dorset magazine and the day’s news, a fifty pence piece, as well as a Plankbridge brochure and gardening information from the Bumblebee Conservation Trust. And because each hut is of heirloom quality, intended to be passed down through the generations, those secrets might not be unearthed for a very long time, if ever.
“This is quite the milestone, that’s a lot of huts that are out there, from the UK to the USA and beyond. I still thoroughly enjoy taking the design from initial concept, to seeing it framed up in the workshop and loaded onto the lorry ready to ship. Here’s to 1000 huts!”
Richard Lee, co-founder of Plankbridge
We offer workshop tours, in-person and via zoom, which is the perfect way to experience our shepherd’s huts and cabins and see behind the scenes. Email us at enquiries@plankbridge.com to book your visit
