Sentry box for National Trust, Cliveden Estate,

We’ve just come back from delivering a brand new sentry box to the National Trust Cliveden Estate in Buckinghamshire.

The National Trust commissioned the sentry box as a feature for their new maze which is opening to the public on the 8th April. The sentry box is at the entrance to the new maze, which has been built with 1,100 yew trees. We were allowed a sneak preview of the maze and had fun trying to find our way out again!

We built the sentry box using traditional oak timber frame techniques, with attractive wooden arches, mortise and tenon joints, cedar shingles for the roof, and an arched oak stable door. The spiral filial on the roof is visible from a long way away and attracts visitors to the maze the moment they enter Cliveden’s beautiful walled garden.

National Trust Project Coordinator Claire Primett said of their new sentry box, “It’s so beautiful! Much better than we could have ever imagined.”

Claire contacted us to build the sentry box after having seen our compost toilets on the Free Range Designs web site to ask if we could adapt our designs to meet their requirements for a sentry box. It is true, however, that a structure like this would actually make a rather stunning oak compost toilet! Perhaps they will come back to ask for some timber frame compost toilets to match their new sentry box…

Here are some pictures of the sentry box, from early construction in the workshop in Wales to the box’s final resting place next to the new maze on Cliveden Estate.