She Sheds and Other Hideaways

Whether an artist’s studio or a self-care sanctuary, the she shed has become the new must-have addition to the family home. This book introduces over 70 women and their unique garden retreats.



Every woman deserves a shed of her own, somewhere to retreat to for some quiet time, to create or grow, to write or paint or just to contemplate the garden. Gill Heriz has interviewed over 70 different women, and Nicolette Hallett has photographed their sheds inside and out, to collect together this unique insight into why women have sheds, and what they do in them. There are sheds for puppet-makers, sculptors and writers, as well as farmers, furniture-makers and woodcutters. There are sheds that can be lived in, sheds that are full to the rafters and sheds that hold the usual collection of gardening tools, lawnmowers and seed packets. Virginia Woolf once argued that, for women, writing required ‘a room of one’s own’. These women have taken that idea a step further – to the bottom of the garden – to find their own personal space.