From Cross Hands to Conon Bridge

At Shufflebottom, we often have to stop and remind ourselves about how far we have travelled both as a business and physically on the ground, since manufacturing a single garden gate for our first customer back in 1977. Over forty-seven years later, we have a turnover of £25+ million and supply a diverse range of customers in the commercial, industrial and agricultural sectors across the UK and beyond.

A particularly special market for us is the agricultural sector in Scotland where we have a dedicated sales person, Paul Dickson. Over the years, Paul has worked with his customers to build close relationships and understand their needs with the result that our ‘Shuff Sheds’ have a strong and well-respected  presence of on the ground on his home turf.

One of Paul’s latest sales saw Shufflebottom supply a steel-framed building kit to agricultural specification to Mr Craig Munro and sited at Sornum, at Easter Kinkell, Conon Bridge in the Scottish Highlands. Easter Kinkell is situated in the geographical area of the Scottish Highlands known as Black Isle. The ‘Black’ in Black Isle is said to refer to the dark black soil of the area, and the ‘Isle’ is not an isle at all, but has the look and feel of almost an island, being a peninsula of 300 square miles of farms, woodlands and small villages.

It is on the western edge of the Black Isle (also famous for the annual Black Isle Show) that our Shufflebottom building now stands, in rich farmland, overlooking the water and the sheep and cattle on the farm.

The Shufflebottom kit building, erected by David Grigor Engineering, our long-standing Scottish customer of 30 years+, is to be used as a general purpose building (just one of the wide range of specifications we supply for the agricultural sector).  It measures 60ft long x 40ft wide x 14ft to eaves incorporating 3 x 20ft bays. The steel work is shotblast to B.S. SA 2.5 Painted 75 microns Zinc Phosphate High Build Primer – Colour 14C39 (Green). The roof (with a 12.5 degree pitch) is clad in Natural Grey P6R Fibre Cement with alternate vented ridges and the sides are clad in Vertical Juniper Green 0.7mm Plastic Coated Single Skin Box Profile with MetSEC 202z14 side rails, sag bars and diagonal tiles. Both ends of the building incorporate gable columns (1 on one end and 3 on the other) of 203 x 133 x 25 Kg/mU.B.

We’re delighted that our name and our buildings have travelled from Cross Hands to Conon Bridge and we like to think of it standing there in Sornum in such a beautiful location.

We would like to thank our own #teamofsteel member, Paul Dickson for his part in this, our fab erector, David Grigor, and also of course, the customer, Mr Craig Munro. We wish them all continued success in Scotland.

And just as a final sign-off, we’d like to remind our customers and prospective customers that our steel-framed buildings come in a supply only kit form, or delivered and erected by Shufflebottom.