Garden Shed With Royal Connections

The A West and Partners factory where my father work before it moved out to Mitcham in Surrey was located in part of an old royal stables in London. Occasionally I would accompany him to work on Saturday mornings and spent the day exploring the nooks and crannies of the old buildings and generally make a nuisance of myself. If pushed I would sweep the floors but only if paid a few shillings for my efforts.

The stable building still retained a few of their original fittings, including some of the wooden horse stalls. When the company wanted to make some changes my father offered to remove the stalls in exchange for being able to take the wood home. We spent a couple of weekends carefully drilling out the wooden dowels that held the oak panelling and supporting timbers together. It took many trips to convey all the wood home as there was little room in the sidecar and some of the longer timbers had to be strapped to its side in a very precarious manner.

The timber was used to build one of the strongest and poshest garden sheds in the country. The frame was made from 4 and 6 inch square timbers and the sides were inch thick tongue and groove boards. Even the window was constructed from an oak door frame and the floor from old floorboards. The shed was finished with several coats of green gloss paint that my father borrowed from his brother in the factory maintenance department. Once completed this posh garden shed was soon completely filled with all the things my father would collect, just in case they may come in handy one day.