Bourne Comment

IN PRAISE OF THE GARDEN SHED

The garden shed has become an institution, an integral part of the home for millions of families, the place where the lawn mower and assorted necessary and unnecessary items of domestic use are stored in case they may be needed one day.

Along with the essential fork, spade, rake and other gardening implements you will find tins of left over paint, brushes, pieces of wood of various thickness and lengths, screwdrivers and boxes of screws together with a few do-it-yourself tools, plastic plant pots and half a bag of compost, sand and mortar mix, wooden stakes and a multitude of other once handy odds and ends, enough to stock a small corner of Travis and Arnold or Branch Bros but most unlikely to be used in the foreseeable future although not thrown away just in case.

Few of us in our childhood have not heard our mother exclaim over something unusual or even unpleasant we have had the temerity to take home: “Put it in the shed.” Such is its reputation as a repository of all those articles that fall between useful and useless, the acceptable and the annoying yet not sufficiently condemnatory to be consigned to the bin.

The garden shed has also become the last resting place for the unwanted, those items way past their sell by date yet we are reluctant to part with them and so they pile up gathering dust in the shelves and corners just in case the time comes when they are needed. A sort through, which we do periodically in a vain attempt to find more space, always reveals long lost treasures, comics and toys which the kids enjoyed when they were at home, old Christmas decorations, candles in case the electricity fails, old kitchen utensils long since superseded by modern appliances, a fishing rod (broken) which revives memories of halcyon days on the river bank, a bicycle pump (although the bike was sold years ago), half a dozen badly scratched 78 rpm records of Andy Clyde and his Clouds of Joy, and so on, a cornucopia of odds and ends, bits and bobs, from a full and varied life with which we have been loath to part. What then would we do without our shed?

Sheds are not new. In fact, they have an interesting history. We have been using additional storage space outside our usual accommodation for centuries and some historians claim that even the Romans had sheds for this purpose, buildings as important as barns and stables for depositing items that did not fall into the category of grain or livestock. Ancient Roman tablets indicate that the shed existed in 330 AD and was used to store household items, such a convenient arrangement that the use of such buildings soon spread throughout Europe and eventually into Britain.

The first mention of the word shed in the United Kingdom was recorded towards the end of the 15th century by the printer William Caxton who left documents mentioning that such buildings were used to store various tools as well as dogs and other live animals.

Sheds were particularly evident during Victorian times but their popularity boomed during between the two world wars of the 20th century when gardening became a national pastime and the range and size of structures began to expand to take the increasing amount of items requiring storage.

The shed is a versatile construction and was soon being adapted for other occasional uses such as a workshop, study, office or even as a dark room. an ingenious idea adapted by the Bourne photographer William Redshaw (1846-1943) who built one in the back garden of his home in North Street to develop his photographic plates, a small and cramped space but sufficient for his needs. The idea proved to be so successful that he began to sell his portable darkrooms which found a ready market among amateurs at a time when photography was becoming a popular hobby although housewives disliked the idea of having chemicals in the house.

Another more ornate shed was erected in the grounds of Shillaker House in the Austerby for Mrs Annie Shillaker (1862-1937), a talented artist whose husband, Harry, decided that she needed space outside and so he built her an ornate wooden construction which she turned into a studio in which to work, display her paintings and with room for a sofa where she could even entertain prospective sitters to afternoon tea.

This example is followed by many creative people today, particularly writers, who decide upon a wooden shed or chalet in which to work in peace away from the distractions of the household. Perhaps the most famous of these is Roald Dahl (1916-90), author of many classic books for children, some completed in his shed or writing hut in the garden of his home at the village of Great Missdenden, Buckinghamshire, where he lived for 36 years, including Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Dahl once confessed that he felt safe in his garden shed and often remarked that it felt like “a little nest or a womb” and so it is right that this small wooden construction responsible for so much literary inspiration is being preserved in the same way as a national monument.

My own experience which has prompted these notes on the English garden shed was compounded this week when I decided to replace my own example which came with the house when we moved here over thirty years ago. It was very large with a veranda and a double door with net curtained windows, built in 1976 over a Bank Holiday weekend by the previous owner and his mate who used timber salvaged from some of the old New England railway cottages in Peterborough which were then being demolished.

This unique construction has given great service over the years but has begun to show its age of late, the roof leaking in several places and doors in need of replacement while the floorboards are sagging in several places and so a visit to the garden centre soon found a replacement, much smaller but quite adequate for my present needs, which arrived on the back of a lorry ready for assembly in the back garden, a two-day task for my gardener after removing the old one, a sad goodbye to an old friend. And so as one shed goes another takes its place because their permanence in English life is not in doubt.

The garden shed has a place of affection in the English psyche for apart from its utilitarian role, it is also a welcome retreat from the world, a safe haven for the hen-pecked husband or somewhere to sit when the gardening palls or it starts to rain and so it is best to keep a chair in the corner and one of those plastic jobs from the patio furniture fits the bill very nicely.

We should not forget either that this is man territory and so the daily newspaper or a suitable magazine should always be at hand. One chap I know also has a bottle of the strong stuff safely stored behind the meths and white spirit in case he fancies a surreptitious nip or two while another has a portable radio to keep in touch with the cricket scores and one old codger of my acquaintance who is well into his eighties whose exercise cycle has been banished from the house now keeps it here in his own domain where he pedals away for half an hour each morning just to kid himself that he is keeping fit.

Sheds have become part of the home. They can be seen adorning the back gardens of most properties throughout the land, not only in suburbia but also in the villages and there is even a sprinkling of them on most allotments. They range in appearance from the smart and well-kept to the tatty and run down, often kept together by a piece of rope and a covering of plastic, but the shed is an essential part of our lives and can never be replaced as that vital space to keep things we may never need or just to sit awhile and watch the world go by when there is nothing particular to do. Those old enough to have had sheds know of this quiet contentment and those who have yet to acquire one may be assured of a pleasure to come.

Note: This article was published by the Bourne web site on 18th July 2015