Meet the Maker: Tim

Woodchester Cabinet Makers

Nestled in the Cotswolds, where honey-stone cottages and timber-framed farmhouses stand as quietly as they did centuries ago, kitchens carry a particular weight. They aren’t just functional spaces, they are the heart of the home, the anchor in houses built long before modern life as we know it. Few people understand this balance better than Tim Buckingham, co-founder of Woodchester Cabinet Makers.

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“Woodchester Cabinet Makers was established in 1996,” Tim reflects. “Next year will be our thirtieth, and I’m incredibly proud we’ve been producing handmade, bespoke kitchens for that long. Nothing is standard. Everything is made here, to the millimetre, in the Cotswolds. That’s rare these days.”

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From Antiques to Kitchens

The company began not with kitchens, but with restoring antique furniture. Tim and his co-founder, Lee Hathaway, built a reputation for restoring antiques until a friend asked them to make a kitchen. They did, and the project landed on the front cover of a national magazine. From there, their direction shifted.

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“We’ve always liked to keep traditional styles in keeping with the property, it adds to the charm. In the old Cotswolds stone houses, you’ll see us working with inset-frame, shaker-style, hand-painted cabinetry, but always balanced with the modern appliances people expect today.”

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This philosophy, of honouring a building’s bones while creating spaces to live fully in the present, is what drew August to Woodchester.

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A Partnership Rooted in Place

When August first approached Tim five years ago, the collaboration began in a new home we had acquired in Aldsworth, a village just north of Bibury, deep in the Cotswolds. Tim met August’s chief designer at the home, walking through questions of flow, cabinetry, and layout, before returning to the workshop to sketch hand-drawn elevations of every unit.

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“With the Aldsworth cottage, we went for a U-shaped run of cabinetry, anchored by a range cooker right in the middle,” Tim recalls. “We had endless discussions about colour, but in the end the answer was outside the window. There was an orchard filled with vibrant yellows, and that led us to India Yellow by Farrow & Ball.”

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The choice gave the kitchen a warmth that tied seamlessly into its surroundings: an 18th-century honey-stone cottage with exposed beams and brickwork. Handmade wooden worktops completed the picture, chosen to echo the handmade dining table August had sourced. The whole scheme felt as if it had grown out of the building’s history, not been placed into it.

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Another project with August followed a similar path. In a 17th-century cottage facing directly onto forest, Tim and the team wanted to bring the outdoors in. The cabinetry was painted a deep, natural green, creating a direct visual link to the trees beyond the windows. As with Aldsworth, the design was guided less by trend and more by what the home, and its setting, asked for.

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The Kitchen as a Social Space

For Tim, the technical details are only part of the story. Just as important is how a kitchen feels when it’s being lived in.

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“We like to make kitchens where the cooking experience feels effortless. You should be able to have friends and family sat nearby, chatting, while you’re at the stove. It should feel natural”

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That philosophy aligns perfectly with August’s, designing homes that aren’t just beautiful, but designed for living together. In homes centuries old, that means kitchens that retain a timeless charm while providing the comfort and practicality people expect.

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Nearly three decades after Woodchester began, Tim is still excited about what lies ahead. With two new projects underway with August, one in central London in our new Grand Pied a Terre Collection, another back in the Cotswolds, his passion remains firmly rooted in craft and place.

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“We’re still hand-drawing, still hand-making, still making sure everything belongs to its house. For us, that’s the joy of it. Every project is different, because every home has its own story.”

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And that is perhaps the essence of Woodchester’s work: kitchens that don’t just serve a home, but become part of its history, crafted to the millimetre, rooted in the Cotswolds, and made to last.

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