The Royal Horticultural Society has collaborated with Plankbridge to produce the RHS Bothy, a contemporary version of the famous small Victorian-era hut used both for farm labourers and gardeners and as a mountain refuge.
The RHS Bothy will be launched at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show in May in the central display in the Great Pavilion, where it will host a series of RHS interviews with women in horticulture. Plankbridge itself will have a trade stand at Chelsea, where it has exhibited for more than ten years.
After the launch, the first ever RHS Bothy will come to the Orchard at RHS Garden Wisley, the flagship garden of the RHS.
RHS Garden Wisley inspired a number of the Bothy’s design features. They include the desk brackets, forged over Dorset charcoal, which were based on the boot scraper outside the Wisley Arts & Crafts Old Laboratory. There are also motifs from the RHS Lindley Collections, the world’s largest collection of botanical art, engraved in the desk back.
RHS Bothies will be on sale online and through in-person orders via the Plankbridge workshop from the launch in 2023. They will all be made to order.
“I grew up in a former keeper’s cottage in bluebell woods near Wimborne in Dorset and there was a little bothy there that I can picture to this day,” commented Richard Lee, founder of Plankbridge. “I was therefore thrilled when the RHS asked if we could work on a unique design together, one that takes inspiration both from RHS Garden Wisley and, of course, my own childhood memories.”
Cathy Snow, licensing manager at the RHS, continued: “Once again Plankbridge has produced an exceptional example of UK craftsmanship working closely with the RHS licensing team and taking inspiration from RHS Garden Wisley, that is also an appealing and highly functional contemporary space with multiple uses. We’re proud to endorse the RHS Bothy and look forward to continuing our successful relationship with the highly skilled, very experienced and enormously enthusiastic Plankbridge team.”
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