Beer and bouzouki in garden taverna

Jul 31 2008 by Andrew Baldwin, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

Beer and bouzouki in garden taverna

Rod Bowles, of Wooldale doesn’t need to catch a plane to sample the atmosphere of a Greek taverna; he just opens the door of his garden shed. ANDREW BALDWIN reports

FORGET whisky in the weedkiller bottle and a padlock on the door. Sheds are no longer just a retreat for hen-pecked husbands but a place to dream.

Shed-lovers – or sheddies as they’re known – have begun to convert their sacred shed spaces into everything from saunas and cinemas to recording studios and laboratories.

But Rod Bowles has something few people would expect in the garden of a house at Wooldale, a Greek taverna.

Guests don’t trip over the mower or sit on a sack of spuds, but relax on comfy chairs and sip ice-cold beers.

The shed has a fully-fitted bar, furniture, fridges and a television for the sport, making it a structure which certainly has the wow factor on a balmy afternoon.

Rod, 61, first kitted out his bar-in-a-garden about eight years ago after retiring as landlord of the Huntsman pub above Holmfirth.

He got the idea after being impressed by the bars when he visited friends who live in Corfu.

“I just decided to do it, although I would say it’s more Mediterranean style than totally Greek,” he says.

“Everyone brings artefacts back for it if they’re out that way; things like fancy bottles, pictures or ash trays.”

Rod got an upgrade six months ago, moving the taverna lock, stock and barrel into a new shed and making sure it was alarmed to the house.

The old shed went back to what it was meant for, a home for tools, mowers and other bits.

Surveys in recent years have shown that half the nation admits to regularly disappearing into their garden sheds.

But while many will still be performing traditional gardening chores, sheds like Rod’s show that their role has changed dramatically.

There are sauna sheds, eco-sheds with grass roofs, workshops and even a recording studio.

Some people run their businesses from bespoke sheds costing anything up to £20,000, a far cry from the days when they were knocked up with whatever wood was lying around.

Andrew Wilcox, who organises a national competition to find the best shed, has come across designs ranging from a Roman temple to a Doctor Who-style Tardis.

He says: “In the last few years I’ve seen the number of people working from their sheds go through the roof.

“I think it’s partly because garden offices, constructed to look like extensions, can be over-priced and ugly. So lots of people are just converting their sheds, summer houses and cabins instead.”

Last month the Rev Jamie Allen, who heads a marriage focus group in West Suffolk, advised newly-married couples to invest in a shed.

He described sheds as the perfect antidote to the pressures on a modern marriage, where couples are often struggling for a bit of personal space.

Back in Wooldale Rod doesn’t view his shed as a male preserve. He and wife Susan regularly eat meals there.

He says: “I get great enjoyment from it. There’s optics on the wall, a beer pump on the bar and my friends love it.

“There’s nothing better when you’re sitting there watching football or cricket on the telly.”

A shed load of facts

1. Philip Pullman wrote his trilogy His Dark Materials in his garden shed.

2. We spend £90m a year on sheds.

3. Louis de Bernieres wrote Captain Corelli's Mandolin in his wooden summer house in Norfolk.

4. In 1995 a schoolboy from Michigan was discovered making a nuclear reactor in his shed. Signs outside it said 'caushon' [sic].

5.Television presenter and DJ Zoe Ball (pictured) reportedly has a 'pink-painted girly retreat'. It is decorated in whites and soft dusky pinks, with mirrored side tables, pale pink silk curtains and embroidered cream flowers.

6. The average age for a man to buy his first shed is 32 years old.

7. Inventor Trevor Baylis came up with the prototype of his famous clockwork radio in his shed.

8. Roald Dahl's writing shed was notoriously small and uncomfortable.

9. Mark Twain's sister-in-law built him a cabin which he described as his "cosy nest".

10. In 2002 the garden shed built for classical composer Benjamin Britten in which he composed some of his last great works, including Death in Venice, Phaedra and the Third String Quartet became a Grade II listed building.