Our Service
Designed, made, and installed under one roof. From first survey to final coat.
About Us
Tewkesbury House is a bespoke design and joinery studio working across the Home Counties.
We make kitchens, bathrooms, and complete interiors for homes that deserve a craftsman's attention.
Our work is drawn from the classical tradition of British cabinetmaking — solid timber, oak and stone, considered proportion, and the kind of fine detailing that only comes from a hand on the tool.
Every project is conceived, drawn, made, and fitted under one roof.
Led from first survey to final coat by Robert Tewkesbury, master cabinetmaker, and delivered by a small trusted team carrying his standard through every discipline.
From a single room to a whole house reimagined, no two commissions are alike — and no two are ever meant to be.
Meet Robert
Tewkesbury House is built around one craftsman.
Robert qualified as a cabinetmaker at eighteen, through a traditional apprenticeship served with a joinery and furniture-making company. Thirty-eight years later, he still designs, makes, and installs every project the studio takes on — leading every trade on site personally and carrying the same standard from the first sketch to the final coat of finish.
His training is City & Guilds, his discipline is solid timber, and his work has been featured in 25 Beautiful Kitchens and Real Homes. But the work itself is the credential that matters.
A drawer that closes the way a drawer should. A panelled wall whose proportion settles a room. A finish that reads quietly across a kitchen and still looks right ten years later.
Robert is not a salesman. He won't talk you into something you don't want, and he won't quote a project he can't deliver. What he will do is sit in the room with you, understand what the house is asking for, and tell you honestly what it will take to make it right.
When the work is done, the standard is whether the client is happy with it. Not whether it's good enough. Robert is, by his own admission, a perfectionist. We don't write that as marketing — we write it because clients tell us afterwards that they noticed.
The job is finished when you say it is.
The Workshop
Every piece we make begins in our workshop.
Drawers cut and dovetailed in solid oak. Frames jointed by hand. Mouldings drawn from the classical order, sometimes with a turn of our own. Doors hung on traditional hinges, finished by hand because the alchemy of a good finish has never come out of a bottle.
We work in solid timber rather than veneer, in stone rather than laminate, in materials chosen to wear well and look better for it.
Where modern technology earns its place — precision tooling, dust extraction, advanced finishing systems — we use it.
Where the human eye and hand still beat the machine — proportion, finish, the final fit of a drawer in its frame — we keep it.
The interaction between the two is what makes the work last.
Design
Design is where the room takes its shape, where the wishlist becomes a plan. Where proportion, materials, lighting, and finish are decided long before the first cut.
Robert leads the design phase personally on every project.
The conversation begins on site, with the room itself, and continues through layout drawings, material samples, and CAD imaging until the design is signed off and the build can begin.
The phase typically takes four to eight weeks, with up to three rounds of redesign included in the proposal - every change beyond that priced openly in writing before any further work happens.
What design covers:
Layout drawings — furniture, appliance, and worksurface design and arrangement
Lighting design — type and placement for ambience, task, and decoration
Electrical layout planning
Plumbing outlines for water systems
Tile and flooring layout and arrangement
CAD imaging of the proposed space
Colour scheme and palette
Sourcing of complementary fittings, ironmongery, fabrics, and finishes
Build & Installation
Once the design is signed off, the work begins in the workshop.
A typical kitchen takes ten to twelve weeks to make, followed by three to four weeks of installation in your home. A whole-house project runs longer, in stages.
We don't hand the build to anyone else.
Every trade on site — carpentry, electrics, plumbing, tiling, flooring, plastering, lighting, decorating — is led by Robert and delivered by his team.
Structural alterations, services, finishing, the final fit of every appliance and worksurface: one studio, one phone number, one signature running through the whole project.
This is the part most studios contract out. It's the part we won't.
Pricing
Bespoke means built for you, and that begins with an honest conversation about what the work costs.
As a guide:
Kitchens typically begin at £45,000 and run to £100,000 or beyond, depending on size, materials, and scope
Bathrooms typically run between £25,000 and £35,000
Whole houses begin at £100,000
Once a project moves beyond the initial conversation, we provide a fully itemised written quote.
Every change made during the design phase is priced in writing before further work is done.
We don't believe in budget surprises, and our clients tell us the detail in our quotes is one of the reasons they trust us with the work.
If you'd like to talk through what your project might involve, the next step is a conversation.
Where We Work
Tewkesbury House works across the South East of England — from the Surrey Hills through Sussex and into Kent, with most of our projects falling within an hour or so of the studio.
Guildford, Tunbridge Wells, Crawley, Horsham, Sevenoaks, Maidstone, Lewes, and the towns and villages in between.
If your home sits outside that area, it's still worth a conversation.
We take on projects further afield where the brief and the home are right for the studio, and we'll tell you honestly whether we're the studio for you.
The next step is a conversation. Tell us a little about your project — the room, the home, what you're hoping to do — and Robert will be in touch to discuss whether the work is one we can take on and what the next stage would look like.