Shed heaven: ex-hen house on Cairngorms estate in running for Shed of the Year

The annual competition, sponsored by Cuprinol, is open to shed owners all over the country, but 2015 is the first year that Walter Micklethwait has entered.

Micklethwait's shed began life as a dilapidated hen house two years ago, with a rusted sheet-metal roof and wormwood-rotted joints. Beginning the restoration project, Micklethwait, who owns Inshriach estate, re-roofed the building during a blizzard before laying an oak parquet floor salvaged from a bar in nearby Aviemore.

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With insulation left over from building materials used on a children's TV show, the shed began to take shape and the one-time antique dealer utilised glass doors and patio doors from the tip to finish the project.

The shed comprises the estate's farm shop, a ladies' waiting room, saloon bar and gin distillery. The shed has been the nerve centre for Crossbill Gin - the first Highland gin produced by Micklethwait and Jonathan Engels, owner of Pincer vodka. Using juniper berries harvested from the Inshriach estate, Crossbill Highland Gin was distilled in copper pots still bought from Portugal and distributed to selected retailers at the end of last year.

The shed also features a bar front and cupboards gleaned from Micklethwait's other projects, sash windows from a house in Edinburgh, a crittal window from the estate's mortgage adviser, timber from scrap or seconds from a sawmill.

The hens that previously lived in the shed before it was transformed into its current guise now live in a turret built from the discarded remains of the smallest and highest railway station in the British Isles.

Micklethwait said: "We're entering the competition because everybody loves a shed.

"It's mostly daft but there is a lot of imagination and creative re-use of stuff in amongst the entries.

"If we get anywhere it will be a bit of a laugh and we get to hang out with some like minded folk and meet George Clarke and his merry band of men."

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Shed heaven: ex-hen house on Cairngorms estate in running for Shed of the Year