Shed of the year 2024, Sponsored by 
This is a day hut. Overnight sleeping is prohibited. I did this once to catch a historic tidal range and those six hours were the best nights sleep I have ever had, going to sleep at a massive high tide where two rivers flow out to sea...the Avon and the Stour.
I awoke to the natural appearance of familiar waters having a seldom revealed and vast exposed sea bed. If you could bottle that night, or legally repeat it , you would have an elixir of life.
The hut was built in the 60's designed by the late Cheshire Robins a local Christchurch architect of note. It was built by the handyman for the local Highcliffe Sailing Club as a start hut for sailing races. A cannon might be fired from the verandah with huge signs erected telling the boats not far off off in the direction of the Isle of Wight the state of play on vertical round circles of wood on the verandah barrier that still exists today.
I rented this hut for peanuts out of season and when bought from the Council it cost £40,000, achieving the same in sealed bids in 2009 after the financial meltdown.
Sleeping sheds on the beach have fetched half a million pounds but they are four times the size, this being seven and a half foot square with a 14 x 7 foot enclosed platform. The hidden wood foundation sleepers are a triumph of thinking in three dimensions.
Since these photos, a little black shed on the beach, the most recent change has been its prettification as shown in the last picture where it is a Cuprinol pastel shade.
Actually, given its maritime need for visual contrast for sailing boats up to half a mile distant, I would prefer an industrial looking and most easily seen whilst being IMHO equally inoffensive to the eye, black. I rented this shed until it passed to a Hedge Fund Manager for whom I acted as a local agent with permitted use of the hut until the financial meltdown in 2008 after which he sold it on.
Data Protection and the new owner having not been seen here means I cannot access or pass on the owners details to readfersheds.co.uk without returning often hoping the "investor" in this shed on the beach might be apprised. BCP Council are now the. ground landlords and might respond to a commercial enquiry for any necessary permissions. It is very photogenic of old, and even in its new Cuprinol colours!
It seems a shame if we cannot offer a shed on the beach which is noteworthy, is a legacy hut for a known architect, has some good stories and has been fully researched with some cracking photos.It also shows the Cuprinol solution for a legacy building being renovated and losing its original function and form due to progressing the design whilst suppressing the architecture.
