As reported in the local newspapers, Stephen Owen’s lifetime labour of love, the woodland workshop, was destroyed by fire in the early hours of Tuesday April 8th. Fire crews took around two hours to get the blaze under control, which is thought to have started by a dust sheet coming into contact with a halogen lamp.

 

This web-site has charted the progress of Stephen’s dream, the first fully sustainable timber building on a school campus in the country, through his own photographs.   Guy Waller spoke to the Surrey Advertiser and commented, “Stephen has been an inspiration to the Cranleigh community as his woodland studio has taken shape over these past 18 months. It is hard to take in the scale of what has happened but we are determined to help him turn tragedy into triumph somehow.”

 

A week on from the catastrophe and despite having worked nearly every day for a year and a half from 7am to 6pm, Stephen remains inspiringly positive in these thoughts he shares with us:  

 

“With the end so near I was looking forward to realising the potential that was held within the new studio but I would like to thank everyone for their support since the fire.  I have been overwhelmed by the breadth and depth that has come through in the calls, cards, letters, emails and conversations.  The genuine heartfelt sympathy has really touched me.  I guess this shows that as my project moved forward people could see that what I was trying to do was really coming to fruition.

 

I was keen to show that you can embrace green issues, which is such a buzz word these days and often wrongly used, and yet still be contemporary and enjoy a comfortable way of living.  (So how green is YOUR (band) wagon?!)

 

I was so looking forward to showing people round on Speech Day as it would have been open by then and letting them see the first building of its type, embracing green development in this way, in the country.  With national publications applauding what we had done here I was pleased that my vision had moved forward and was about to put a new spot-light on Cranleigh.  We will just have to wait a little longer that’s all.

 

We may have lost our prototype but just wait till you see the next one! My faith is strong and I believe a better building and richer experience will emerge through this set-back.”