A visual record of the workshop

Made in Suffolk: Gun Cabinets and Sporting Joinery

Sporting Cabinetmakers is the specialist sporting work of Reeve & Co Interiors. The pieces shown here are made, finished and installed by the same workshop in Mickfield.

Glazed oak gun cabinet with a dentil cornice in a panelled room, shotguns racked upright behind the glass — Glazed oak with a dentil cornice, made to the panelling of the room it stands in.

Our clients’ homes and gun cabinets are private, and most ask that they are not photographed or published. The images here are visualisations based on our own workshop drawings for commissions we have completed. If you would like to see drawings, samples and references for completed work, we will show them to you in person — visits to the Mickfield workshop are by appointment.

Gun cabinets

Cabinets are made as furniture first: drawn to the room, finished to the joinery around them and built to hold a collection properly. The security requirement is met inside the piece rather than announced on the outside.

Fitted oak gun cabinet and bookcase run flanking a fireplace, with a glazed centre section — Cabinet and bookcase drawn as one run, so the guns sit in the joinery rather than against it.

Glazed oak gun cabinet beside a sash window and writing desk, guns stored upright behind glazed doors — A freestanding cabinet proportioned to the window and the desk beside it.

Detail of a fitted glazed gun cabinet with astragal glazing bars and adjoining bookshelves — Astragal bars, and a proper reveal where the cabinet meets the shelving.

Solid-fronted dark timber gun cabinet with panelled doors closed and no glazing — Solid doors where the collection is not for display. Nothing about it reads as a safe.

Dark walnut glazed gun cabinet with guns racked upright and a leather armchair alongside — Walnut, glazed, sitting in the room as furniture rather than equipment.

Green-painted fitted gun cabinets running the length of a boot room corridor — A corridor run: storage taken the full length of the wall instead of one cabinet in a corner.

Open gun cabinet interior showing a lined rack, a gun in place and an open drawer below — The interior is the specification — lined rack, correct spacing, drawers below for the rest of it.

Mahogany Wellington chest with brass handles and graduated drawers for cartridge storage — A Wellington chest for cartridges: locked at one stile, graduated drawers within.

Bespoke gun cabinets

Fitted gun rooms

A gun room is joinery as well as security: racks drawn around the collection, a bench for the work, and the steel kept out of sight behind the timber.

Fitted oak gun room with guns racked to both walls and a central island bench — Racking to both walls with a bench in the middle, so the work happens where the guns are.

Oak-panelled gun room with a central cleaning bench and racked guns behind — Panelling and racking drawn together; the bench takes the centre of the room.

Dark green panelled gun room with guns racked along two walls and a stool at the bench — A darker scheme — painted panelling, racked walls and a stool at working height.

Fitted oak gun room with racked guns, banks of drawers and a small cleaning table by the window — Drawers for everything that is not a gun, and the cleaning table under the window for the light.

Oak gun room with racked guns, a central cleaning table and a window seat — A room to sit in as well as work in.

Green-painted gun room with lit gun racks, a chest of drawers and a cleaning stool — Lit racks: the collection is visible without the room becoming a display case.

Oak gun room with guns racked to the wall and a central bench beneath a window — A single racked wall and a bench — the smaller room done properly.

Green fitted gun room with a pull-out cleaning slide below the gun rack — A pull-out slide under the rack gives a working surface without adding furniture.

Detail of an oak gun room rack with cartridge drawers and a leather-topped bench — Cartridge drawers under the rack; leather on the bench top where the work is done.

Pale green fitted gun room with a window desk, racked guns and boot storage — Guns, desk and boot storage in one room, drawn in one hand.

Fitted gun rooms

Sporting rooms, boot rooms and display

Boot rooms, display cabinets, cleaning tables and dog beds — the joinery around the sport, made in the same shop and to the same standard as the cabinets.

Glazed oak display cabinet holding trophies and sporting effects in a panelled room — A display cabinet made to the panelling, for the things that are not guns.

Glazed mahogany display cabinet with a cased fish and shelves of sporting effects — Mahogany and glass for cased fish, with the shelf of effects beneath.

Cased fish mounted in a glazed display above a shelf of books — A cased fish hung as part of the joinery rather than fixed to the wall afterwards.

Sporting room with display cabinets, a central cleaning table and gun racking beyond — Display, bench and racking in one room, drawn as a single scheme.

Oak cleaning table with a baize top beneath framed prints and a mounted deer skull — A cleaning table with a baize top, made to stand in a room people actually use.

Detail of a cleaning table with the baize top raised and a fitted tool drawer below — The top lifts; the tools live in a fitted drawer directly beneath.

Boot room with boots and coats along a peg rail beneath a window — Peg rail, bench and a stone floor — the room that takes the weather.

Boot bench with a boot jack and slatted shelf over a stone floor — Slatted shelves, so wet kit drains and dries rather than sits.

Built-in dog bed beneath a boot room cabinet with a dog lying inside — A dog bed built into the run, not an afterthought pushed against it.

Oak dog bed built into a run of boot room cabinetry with two dogs inside — Two up: the same detail drawn wider.

Sporting and boot rooms

Fishing rooms and rod rooms

Fishing kit deserves the same quality of joinery as a gun cabinet. These rooms store rods vertically, keep flies and reels in glazed oak, and treat the work of getting ready as furniture rather than as a rack in a corner.

Fitted oak fishing room cabinet with glazed doors beside a fireplace and armchair — Fishing joinery made to sit in a room you would otherwise call a study.

Freestanding oak fishing cabinet with glazed upper doors and drawers, rods racked alongside — A freestanding piece where a fitted run is not wanted, with rods racked alongside.

Rod rack holding fishing rods upright beside a window, with drawers below — Rods stored upright and supported at two points, drawers beneath for the rest.

Open rod cabinet showing rods laid horizontally on lined shelves, a landing net alongside — Laid flat and lined, for rods that should not stand.

Green-painted rod storage with circular rod ports and reels above a run of drawers — Rod ports drilled to the section of the rods they hold.

Open drawer of a fishing cabinet fitted with dividers holding fly reels — Dividers cut to the reels, so nothing moves in the drawer.

Fly-tying bench with a vice, tool drawers, lamp and stool — A fly-tying bench at the right height, with the tools within reach of the vice.

Green fitted fishing room with rod storage and a work surface beneath a window — The whole room: storage, work surface and light in one wall.

Waders hung on a slatted drying rack above a stone floor in a green-painted fishing room — A slatted rack over stone — waders dry where the water can go somewhere.

Boot storage with pigeonholes holding boots and coats, and a wicker basket above — Pigeonholes sized to boots, with the basket above for what is left over.

Fishing and rod rooms

Projects

Three commissions, in outline

Shown with the discretion this work requires: no client names, no house names, no addresses, and no detail of any security arrangement. What they do show is how a brief turns into a room.

A gun room for a forty-gun collectionNorfolk. Independent locking per bay, a proper bench, and a room that works on a shoot morning.

A glazed oak cabinet for a librarySuffolk. Drawn into an existing bookcase run so the room looks no different for it.

A fishing room for a chalk-stream houseHampshire. Rods left made up, reels in fitted drawers, and a wet end that dries.

What we will and will not show

This is a visual record of the work and making capability, not a catalogue of client addresses. We do not publish names, house names, street names, house numbers, certificate details or exact security arrangements. Where a drawing or workshop photograph is used instead of a finished installation, it is labelled as such.

Have a collection that needs a place?

Send a general list of what you own, a few wide photographs and the room dimensions. We will tell you whether the right answer is a cabinet, a fitted wall or a room.

Talk to the workshop How the commission works