YOU’RE NEVER TOO OLD FOR A TREEHOUSE

For those brave enough to take on the ultimate garden DIY challenge, tree surgeon James Bloor advises starting with a simple wooden platform. Although his ambitions were loftier.

Bloor lives in a 1980s bungalow near the village of Lurgashall in West Sussex with his wife Kerrina and two children Rudy, aged eight, and sixyear-old Esme. Their wraparound garden runs down to a small creek. Think Swallows and Amazons.

The tree house is built into a bank and overhangs the stream with a ladder and trap door for access. “It took me four weeks and the hardest bit was getting wood up and down the bank. It’s really a two-person job,” says Bloor, who runs the tree surgery and landscaping company Apples and Pears (applesandpearsgardening.co.uk). He started with a platform then built up the sides before adding a cedar shingle roof.

All of the play equipment Bloor has installed is from upcycled materials. There is a plastic green slide sunk into the steep slope of the garden that he was given by a client who was throwing it away. He says he is also in the process of building a climbing frame from ship masts he bought home from a job at Gosport shipyard.

g James Bloor, pictured with his wife Kerrina and their children, has built a treehouse in the garden