Mark Beresford's RAF-themed shed has landed him a spot in the finals of a national contest
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A Macclesfield man enjoys nothing more than to spend time in his garden - specifically in an aircraft hangar he built next to his TARDIS.
Mark Beresford's aircraft hangar is in fact a shed - made out of recycled materials. He started building it during lockdown and now he’s a finalist in the 'Shed of the Year' competition.
The shed is called the 'Hanger Hangout' and is based on an RAF theme. There’s a chance that Mark could land himself £1,000 if the voting goes his way.
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His shed has made it to the last three in the 'Lockdown' category out of hundreds of entrants. It was something he did at home while he had a lot of time on his hands.
Mark said: "I've always been this kind of hands on person, so a few years ago I built a TARDIS out of an old allotment shed." Mark didn’t travel through time and space in his TARDIS shed, but he did get onto TV.
He explained: "That got featured on George Clarke’s Amazing Spaces on Channel 4. That was six or seven years ago. The TARDIS is next door to the Hangar.
"The style of it on the outside is basically like an aviation hangar. It was inspired by my father who used to be in the RAF. I was talking to him one day about the RAF and he used to live in Nissen Huts, which was the same kind of shape - like an arch shape. And also all the hangers were corrugated steel hangers, like World War two hangers.
“It's also the fact that in the corner of the garden we had an old trampoline and the kids no longer use it. Looking at the trampoline, I was thinking 'what can I do with it rather than throw it away?'. I realised if you split the trampolines in half, you get two perfectly nice arches.
“So that's what kind of inspired it really, a conversation with my dad about the RAF and a desire to use trampolines, so it looks like a World War Two hanger. It's actually built with recycled materials, it’s got corrugated steel on the outside.
“Then the base of it is made with scaffolding boards that you might have on scaffolding sites. The doors and windows came out of a skip that had been thrown out by a builder, there’s all kinds of second hand materials, things I got given free and scavenging around, that’s the inspiration behind it.
The shed has become an extension of the family home as it is decked out with wi-fi, settees and a TV. Mark said: "I’ve got teenage kids and they use it as a crash pad when they get their friends around so it's a party place. My youngest child, he's autistic, so it means he needs quiet places to go. It's ideal for an autistic child to sit in the garden underneath the trees and he likes to just to go down there as well.
“Occasionally, people sleep there if we have extra guests because it’s got a sofa bed in it. It gets used for everything from offices to play places because we have barbecues outside of it. It wasn't built for the competition. It was for the family, something that we did during the lockdown. Basically when the competition came out, and I saw that they’d advertised again, I thought ‘yeah I’ll enter it’.
"I’m really excited it's been picked out. It's amazing that it's deemed worthy enough to go into the competition. Everyone who has seen it likes it. It's pretty amazing what we've done out of basically scrap material."
If you'd like to vote for the Hangar Hangout go to readersheds.co.uk
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