When putting together our brochure we really wanted to capture the history of Blackdown. There would quite simply be no history to speak of if it wasn’t for our inspirational customers and our incredibly talented team, so a timeline of photos to celebrate each year spent creating our customer’s dreams seemed to be a good place to start! The hardest part was deciding which photos and stories to choose!
So, for the first story of our #BlackdownBrochureStories we’re taking you behind the Blackdown photo timeline on the first page of our new brochure- request your brochure here!
2011 Our first huts!
2011- This was the year our Blackdown Journey began. So we thought it was very appropriate to choose a photo that showed off one of our very first huts. This photo was taken at the first show we attended at Dillington House. It was built by the creators of Blackdown, Will and his cousin George on Will’s driveway! A wonderful photo to showcase how Blackdown planted its roots in the world of shepherd huts!
A Shepherd Hut for the Shepherd!
2012- The heritage of the shepherd hut started when farmers decided to build wooden or metal structures on wheels to help them move around the farm and tend to their flock of sheep, especially during lambing. With this in mind, we just had to use this photo from 2012, because the customer of this hut wanted it for them to stay in throughout the lambing season! A beautiful nod to the heritage of this wonderful structure that we have all fallen in love with. Now let’s take a moment to appreciate the throwback to that green uniform!
2013- the year of our first Turnkey Hut!
2013- This was the year that we put our first bathroom in a shepherd hut! An exciting moment in our history because this was the creation of our very first Blackdown Turnkey Hut. Will and George were inspired by how the wonderful space of a shepherd hut could become a complete solution for spare rooms and glamping accommodation. Eliminating the need to traipse across a field in wellington boots to visit the communal facilities; instead, this model Turnkey Hut offers the luxury experience of a hotel room but can be put in the most beautiful locations with the ability to be completely self-contained within the wonderful and snug confines of a shepherd hut.
The creation of our signature wall-bed
2014- It was in 2014 that we designed and crafted our signature wall-bed. This inspiring piece of design meant that the discerning space of a shepherd hut could become even more luxurious and flexible. Our cleverly designed wall-bed meant that we could offer our customers a space that by day, guests can enjoy as a dining nook for a delicious meal to be eaten and by night easily converts to a cosy sleep space. Add in a bespoke kitchen, a shower room and lots of storage, you have everything you could possibly need in one hut!
Our signature wall-bed meant that no extra space was needed as it simply pulls down from the wall into the dining area, fully made with one’s favorite linen and cushions. This is a design that to this day is one of our customer’s favourites because it offers an effortless, luxury and unique experience for the lucky user!
2015- Challenge accepted! Our first catering hut, The Blackdown Towby
2015- The first Towby! With 4 years of experience under our belts of creating bespoke spaces individual to our customer’s needs, we didn’t shy away when one customer came to us and asked if we could design and craft a catering hut. Subsequently, the Blackdown Towby Hut was born! A clear highlight of 2015 for us, so we thought this photo of our Towby Hut at Westonbirt Arboretum for scrummy cake and coffee, was a great representation of this triumphant year at Blackdown.
2016- Our first Brace Hut!
2016- In the year when the word ‘glamping’ was added to the Oxford Dictionary we built our very first Brace Hut for a wonderful customer who wanted some glamping accommodation to accompany their beautiful hotel in Dartmoor, the Cider House. It doubled the potential for the space and flexibility achievable in our shepherd huts, without encroaching on the well-proportioned design and aesthetic we had fine-tuned throughout the years. The customer also presented us with their dream of offering guests the ability to revel in the infamous dark skies of Dartmoor from the comfort of their shepherd hut. We grabbed this challenge with both hands and designed and created our signature Star Gazing Roof Light! The Cider House’s Brace Huts are a great example of how our shepherd huts can become a unique and bespoke glamping experience, that reflect the beautiful existing accommodation in a luxury hotel.
2017- We developed our Retreat Hut design and created our first luxury Office Retreat Hut
2017- The first copper ceiling in our shepherd hut! The wonderful thing about our Retreat Hut is that you can simply choose the colour of your hut’s internal cladding and have a space which you can play with and configure with your own furniture, or you can really go to town and ask us to add whatever you’d like to make the space work for you. So, we thought we’d go all out in our Retreat Hut back in 2017 and add a beautiful feature copper ceiling, along with a bespoke made rock and roll sofa which transforms into a bed for a snooze to be enjoyed. We also added in some antique furniture to showcase just how you can add your own favourite pieces into this space within a luxury and bespoke designed shepherd hut. So our 2017 photo just had to be our Home Office Retreat Hut!
2018- Our first delivery of multiple Brace Huts, 5 to be exact!
2018- We chose this photo of one of our Brace Huts at the Fish Hotel, Farncombe Estate, because this really represented how far our product and customer journey had come since establishing in 2011. The Fish Hotel was our first multiple delivery of Brace Huts. We were able to offer a full solution, from putting The Fish in touch with our interior designer Marina, delivering and installing the huts ourselves, and we were and still are proud to demonstrate that we’re able to deal with orders of this scale whilst making our customer’s journey as seamless as possible.
2019- We launched New Modular Turnkey Hut, and our customers loved it!
2019- Last year when one of our customers expressed that they wanted a lounging area as well as, a dining area, bed, en-suite, and kitchen within the brace – of course, we rose to the challenge and the family Brace hut was born, incorporating a lounge area, kitchen, fixed bed and a pull-down wall bed.
While we were on that, we thought that we should update our signature Turnkey Hut and make the space even more flexible. With our core values of quality, innovation, and flexibility in mind, our Modular Turnkey Hut was born and has become a popular glamping solution. It’s an adaption of previous Turnkey designs which includes a cosy seating area with a dining table, that can also be a coffee table and a lounging area, and full-size wall-bed, bespoke kitchen area, and a strikingly opulent en-suite. Like the original turnkey, this was a really popular design.
To request your copy of our brand new brochure fill out the form below- we cant wait to hear from you!
