Why choose a Plankbridge shepherd’s hut?
Plankbridge bespoke shepherds’ huts are a traditional, insulated and mobile design for contemporary year round uses such as a home office, studio, bolthole, music or garden room. 

Richard and Jake's training and background in all aspects of carpentry (timber framing house building, log house construction etc. through to fine furniture making) adds up to around forty years of hands-on professional woodworking experience.  James has completed carpentry training courses and has a particularly good eye for quality and detail.  Andrew is very skilled on the metal work side.  With this knowledge, Jane's painting skills, and around fifty shepherds' huts behind us, we feel qualified to build huts of the finest quality.

It's great to get feedback from customers by email or letter once huts have been delivered, and here are some of them:

'Just wanted to say how pleased I am with the shepherd's hut.  It is beautifully made and finished and looks wonderful.  It has brought many admiring comments.' (Somerset customer)

'Hut is brilliant, driver was brilliant, will send photos, many thanks!' (Scotland customer)

'It's fabulous; I'm ecstatic!  Well worth the wait!  Thanks guys!'  (West Sussex customer)

'Just wanted to say a huge thanks for delivering the hut yesterday, it is a real work of art, beautiful craftsmanhip and we are delighted with it' (Chiltons customer)  

'We are delighted with our hut, we feel we have invested in an heirloom', (Kent customer)

'It is the detail that is so important and makes it a cut above.  When I open it to show people they gasp and one lady was nearly in tears!', (Jersey customer) 

'We are absolutely delighted with our hut and it has been wonderfully cosy with the rain lashing down outside.' (New Forest customer.)

How are Plankbridge Shepherd's huts made?
The Plankbridge shepherd's hut is the result of many years hard work, developing our version of this traditional design. Just as in the best quality huts of 100 years ago,  we attend to all of the details, from the hand - forged ironwork through to  the 'time capsule' hidden beneath the floor. The unique Plankbridge handcrafted metal chassis is based on original hut designs of local firms such as Lotte and Warne, Dorchester and Reeves of Bratton.  The solid 2 1/4" square axle section is machined at the ends to take the wheels, a much stronger arrangement than a timber beam with a metal stub axle.   The chassis is now powder coated.  Our new cast iron wheels, made in Somerset from our own patterns, are based on a particularly interesting spoke design we found whilst restoring a hut for a local customer.  The tongue and groove sub floor and joists are pressure treated.

The frame of the Dorset downland hut is made from Dorset grown durable Douglas fir, milled to size at a family run sawmill in mid Dorset. The Plankbridge hut frame is made from construction graded  Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified softwood from Scandinavia, seasoned and kiln dried for stability.  We assemble the frame using timber frame house building techniques. It is very strong, and weather proof, and is carefully designed to keep the interior a dry and healthy place to be.  The frame is clad in 9mm structural spruce ply, with a breather membrane under the corrugated cladding and vapour barrier behind the internal tongue and groove lining.  The walls are designed to breathe to the outside, with the corrugations of the cladding allowing air flow over the breather membrane.

The Plankbridge hut has a 75mm insulated cavity throughout, a development that any Victorian shepherd would have been glad of, had it been available then.  We have restored a few huts, roadmen's steam roller living vans in particular, which had a layer of felted horse hair in the roof; an early attempt at insulation.  We now use Earthwool fleece as standard, a carbon neutral insulation made from 80% recycled plastic.bottles. Customers can upgrade to Thermafleece sheeps' wool, a fantastic natural product from the Lake District

The floor is solid character grade French oak, finished in linseed oil. We fit one cottage style window (FSC certified) as standard, and you are free to specify further windows and their position. The windows are double glazed which adds to the overall thermal and sound insulation properties. We now fit the windows with lead flashing all around, dressed over the corrugated cladding for a weather tight seal.  The stable door is made 'in house' from kiln dried, knot free Canadian Douglas Fir - a superb naturally durable timber.  The doors are then fitted with solid brass hinges, slotted screws, five lever mortise lock and a hand forged Suffolk latch.

We use mainly traditional Farrow and Ball estate eggshell paint on the interior, and you are free to choose any colour from their range. Other makes of paint can of course be chosen if you prefer. Our standard exterior paint for the corrugated cladding is an agricultural, hardwearing green. We use the superb, highly durable Sadolin Superdec satin range of colours on the exterior woodwork

To find out more about the outstanding build quality of our huts do get in touch, we would be pleased to show you our show hut, or the work in progress in our purpose built workshop.

Internal dimensions
The inside of the huts are 1.84m (6’) wide by 3.5m (11’6”) long. It is 2.3m (7’6”) to the highest point of the curved ceiling. A hut is surprisingly spacious.

Wider Huts

A shepherd's hut should be around 7' wide x 12' long wide externally, certainly no wider, as they were roughly cart width to negotiate gateways and farm tracks.  The character of a genuine shepherd's hut depends on these proportions.   The wheels on a shepherd's hut must be set beyond the sides of the hut; if the wheels are under the sides of the hut it's not a shepherd's hut but a roadman's living van or something strange.

To create extra room within a hut we often build into the wall cavity to create a bed length of 6'4".  The recessed area is then insulated with aluminium airtec insulation, at no extra cost.  We can also make the huts a little longer, if required.

Special features
You can specify additional features such as a bunk or double bed, electrical wiring or a fold away desk. The gentle glow and curl of smoke from a handmade wood burner, for example, brings a shepherd’s hut to life. Our usual woodburners are made by a craftsman blacksmith in Devon, and we also fit more familiar makes when asked.  You only need about 1kw output as our huts are so well insulated, so the smallest wood burner is more than adequate.

The option of double stable doors on the side creates our Riverkeeper’s hut.  A single door to the side, which suits some uses, is our Island Bothy design.

Any bespoke options can be quoted for.

Our approach to the environment.
Uniquely we are based on a wetland nature reserve, and we approach our business and our surroundings in the same way; we strive to enhance and protect our landscape. On a more global scale we are supporting the fantastic RSPB Sumatra rainforest project.

We see it simply as common sense that only locally sourced and FSC materials are used in our huts. At least fifteen local craftspeople and suppliers contribute to a Plankbridge hut!

Price
The Plankbridge hut, expertly built to the above specifications, is £8925 plus VAT (£10,486.87 inc.)  A comfortable, insulated and finely built hut (oak floor, double glazed window etc.) fit for a wide range of 21st century uses.  There are many possible additions such as a wood burner (£695 plus VAT) and electrics (£278 plus VAT).

A much more basic version, the Dorset downland with an exposed internal timber frame and pine floor is £5925 plus VAT (£6961.87 incl.)

Please ask for further details.

We require a £500 holding deposit at the time of order, 50% as work commences and the balance on delivery.

Delivery
We can deliver using Landrover and trailer, professional local hauliers with hiab crane or low loader (fully insured) and have delivered as far as the French Alps and throughout the UK.  We obviously need prior warning of difficult access ( you will be able to judge if a vehicle can drive as close as possible to the site).  Once positioned some form of hardstanding should be beneath the wheels, depending on the ground conditions, but railway sleepers, stone slabs and bricks have all been used succesfully.   Due to the high build quality of our huts we do not  offer flat pack versions for assembly on site, but a crane can be hired.

Reproduction or restored
Our standard huts use professional cast iron wheels from our own original patterns (and we can fit pneumatic tyres if you insist!)  We also occasionally restore shepherd's hut chassis. Please ask for details.