The Dovecote

West Dean, West Sussex

We were delighted to be contracted to undertake a restoration of the 14th century Dovecote at Westdean.  

Winner of the Sussex Heritage Trust Award for Landscape and Garden.

The Dovecote had fallen into considerable decay over several decades with the roof structure having completely disappeared into a pile of rubble many years before. This left the structure exposed to the elements, which had destroyed most of the chalk nesting boxes and some of the external stone walling.

Our remit was to restore the derelict structure back to a working Dovecote using traditional materials and methods of construction. Replacement stone was used to reconstruct the external walls, new nesting boxes were carved and fitted, a new circular oak ring beam and oak roof structure was formed on site and the new roof was tiled with handmade clay tiles from Battle.

Internally, we reproduced a new wooden potence revolving ladder which enables access to the nesting boxes; all of which were copied to the original historic detail.