For centuries, shepherds tending flocks of sheep and lamb would look to the sky at night. They would invoke an old saying: “Red sky at night, shepherd’s delight.” Indeed, when the evening sky was infused with a crimson hue, it meant morning would be bright and calm for their tasks.

“The context about shepherds and the structures they lived in was a nice fit for why we named our company Red Sky Shepherd’s Huts,” says Adam Bennett, director of the family-run firm based in the English Cotswolds, within bleating distance of Oxford. His father, Paul Bennett, founded the firm nine years ago and the operation has received enough orders for the huts they design and build to rival the numbers of sheep dotting the nearby countryside.

Such small quarters for shepherds have been subtle features of the English countryside for centuries, but it was only in the Victorian era that they took on newer, more enduring forms, ones referenced today in the creations from Red Sky. The introduction of corrugated metal, for instance, at the height of the Industrial Revolution, allowed for curved roofs, and, thus, sturdier, more rainproof structures. The cast-iron wheels on which such structures could be rolled were also introduced along the way and are used now on the huts from Red Sky. The huts of centuries past were typically significantly smaller than those built by Red Sky, but, essentially, had the same function. “We’re trying to maintain, as much as possible, the proportions and curvatures of the old huts,” Bennett says, “but ours have grown in length and width from those of the distant past.”

To see all photos, visit the MILIEU Newsstand to purchase this issue in print or visit Zinio.com to purchase this issue in digital format.

WRITTEN BY DAVID MASELLO

This story appeared in the Summer 2025 issue of MILIEU.