Sales fly high for Oswestry pensioner's woodwork in aid of Whittington Castle

Retired newspaper editor Sam Evans, who made a second career of carpentry on leaving journalism 40 years ago, had already raised £150 for the castle’s coronavirus appeal by offering to repair furniture and donating the money paid.

But after being asked to make a bird box, Sam put his design on social media and was inundated with requests.

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The 80-year-old from Oswestry has since been grafting in his workshop, having already made 20 of the 40 bird boxes ordered.

“I looked online and frankly I didn’t like the look of any of the boxes on offer,” he said.

“So I fiddled around with a more attractive design, based loosely on the shape of an old Victorian hexagonal street light. I checked my timber store and found some larch, enough to recycle into 10 boxes.

"I thought ‘let’s go for it’, and charge £20, at least double the cost of an imported Chinese box. I reckoned there would probably be half a dozen nutty bird-lovers prepared to lash out, and maybe the four left over could be sold in the castle shop when it reopens.”

But within two hours of posting a photo of one of the boxes on Facebook, 40 people had placed an order. Sam added: “The phones were red-hot so I had to say no to a couple of people; I hadn’t a clue how long it was going to take to make 40.”

More than £11,000 has been raised in a bid to reopen Whittington Castle, which is under threat of permanent closure due to the coronavirus pandemic.