Gimme shelter

For summer lunches and party overspills, for shelter from sun and drizzle, and sometimes simply for some peace at the bottom of the garden, nothing beats a summerhouse. Such is their popularity, there is a design for every mood – from copper-domed decadence to green-roofed eco-friendliness – and a price to suit every pocket.

Perhaps because of Britain’s capricious climate, summerhouses have enjoyed a long history here. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, they were often in Marie Antoinette style: miniature cottages, thatched or tiled, with leaded glass windows. The earliest examples were one-offs built by estate carpenters, but by the late 19th century, they had begun to capture the imagination of the masses, with companies such as Henry & Julius Caesar, of Cheshire, and Barnard, Bishop & Barnard, of Norwich, offering small “off the peg” ranges.

In the 1920s, Boulton & Paul, another Norwich firm, began making revolving summerhouses, designed to turn to catch the sun as it moved overhead. These soon became the must-have shelter for the smart garden. Based on Alpine chalets in Swiss tuberculosis sanitoriums, with large windows and paintwork in seaside hues, these “sunshine rooms” are still the model for many designs.

The rustic designs produced between the end of the 19th and the middle of the 20th century occasionally turn up at architectural salvage and specialist auctions. Tina Pasco, a dealer based near Canterbury, has an early-20th-century example by Henry & Julius Caesar for £8,500. A reasonable number of prewar Boulton & Paul sunshine rooms have survived because of their excellent build quality, and come up at auction for more than £2,000.

“Summerhouses are tricky to find, but there are some terrific buys to be had,” says Rupert van der Werff, a specialist at Sotheby’s, which holds garden and architectural sales at its base near Billingshurst, West Sussex. (The next is on September 25.) “And if you want to sell on your 1930s Boulton & Paul in a few years’ time, it will have kept its value, if not gone up.” For those of us who will be buying new, an abundant crop is available. The first thing to consider is size. A summerhouse will fit into even a relatively small garden, as some makers specialise in cunning corner rooms and diminutive, Tardis-like structures that are surprisingly roomy.

Lugarde, a Dutch firm, offers summerhouses that are designed to tuck into a corner. They arrive in kit form, and you have to paint them yourself, but the quality is exceptional: solid timber walls, 28mm-68mm thick, made from slow-grown Scandinavian pine. The pentagonal Fifth Avenue, which is 2.4 metres wide, starts at £3,500. Scotts of Thrapston makes petite octagonal pavilions and tiny chalets. It’s well worth spending an additional £550 to kit them out in the company’s own fitted furnishings and upholstery, designed to maximise the internal space as well as add comfort. The most popular model, the Baltimore, costs £3,925; its remote-controlled revolving base costs £1,500.

If size is not an issue, the choice becomes wider. A web search turns up a host of firms that make high-quality traditional summerhouses, with prices ranging from £2,000 to £20,000. Many makers advise against buying straight from the internet, however, or even from a catalogue. Despite the success of his website, James Crane, of Crane Sheds and Summerhouses, encourages buyers to come to view his buildings. “A lot of summerhouses are sold over the internet nowadays, but customers really can’t get an idea of the construction or the quality of the timber unless they look at it in the flesh,” says Crane, who is based in King’s Lynn, Norfolk.

The timber used should be accredited by the Forest Stewardship Council – from sustainable sources and grown slowly for strength and density. Paints should be microporous, water-based and flexible, so that they move with the timber rather than flake.

Are there any bargains? The DIY superstores can supply garden rooms from about £500, although the timber and construction will not match the quality you get from a specialist. Look out for imaginative mass-produced designs such as the Homebase Life-space, a cheery pale-blue timber and aluminium chalet (from £2,799).

At the cutting edge of contemporary designs, green is the word. A summerhouse that is unkind to the environment is strictly gazebo non grata. Garden Affairs offers living roofs – sedum plants, on special mats, that are applied to sturdily built log cabin-style structures. The covering is less fragile than tile or thatch, although it is more expensive than shingle or tile. Garden Affairs, based in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, supplies living roofs from about £100 a square metre.

Some firms are making summerhouses entirely out of recycled elements. Rod Donaldson, of Source, in Bath, produces a gothic revolving summerhouse made from reclaimed timbers, with Victorian glass in the leaded windows, topped with a fabulous octagonal copper-clad roof (£10,282). John Waller, who runs Underwoodsman, based on the Kent/Sussex border, produces octagonal summerhouses made from sweet chestnut and willow for £1,950. Winchcombe Reclamation, in Gloucestershire, builds garden rooms using salvaged materials, including Cotswold stone and clay tiles.

Aside from size, budget and saving the planet, is there anything else to consider? If you want to avoid having to apply for planning permission, your summerhouse must not be more than 10 cubic metres in volume and must be positioned more than 5 metres from your house. The height should not exceed 4 metres for a pitched roof (3 metres otherwise). It must not cover more than half of the area of your garden. In short, if your summerhouse resembles a thinly disguised extension, planning permission will be needed. If you live in a conservation area or a listed building, check with the conservation officer before buying or building. Remember, too, that summerhouses are cheaper than the increasingly trendy garden offices, because they are uninsulated and designed to be used in the summer months rather than year-round.

A wooden summerhouse will need a level, stable, slightly raised platform to support the timber structure and protect it from damp. Constructing a concrete slab is a task for an experienced DIYer or professional, so, once the ground is levelled and compacted, the easier option is to lay paving slabs, with which you can also form a patio around the summerhouse.

If the idea of levelling bases and assembling flat packs has you heading for the sun lounger in exhaustion, there are attractive, inexpensive temporary structures that will serve just as well. When the sun emerges, you can whip out The Designer Box’s gorgeous garden pavilion, a 1.6metre octagonal cotton tent with voile curtains embroidered with dragonflies, supplied with a gingham floor covering (£290).

Suppliers: Tina Pasco, 01227 722151, www.espritdujardin.com; Sotheby’s, 01403 833560, www.sothebys.com; Crane, 01553 617124, www.craneshedsandsummerhouses.co.uk; Garden Affairs (stocks Lugarde, Scotts of Thrapston and others), 01225 774566, www.gardenaffairs.co.uk; Homebase, 0845 077 8888, www.homebase.co.uk; Underwoodsman, 01892 740303, www.underwoodsman.co.uk; Source, 01225 469200, www.source-antiques.co.uk; Winchcombe Reclamation, 01242 609564, www.winchcombereclamation.co.uk; The Designer Box, 0870 122 1007, www.thedesignerbox.co.uk