The Original Titcote
How it all began
As with most things from a customer.
Living in central London and having a small garden could we come up with a dovecote to suite? They liked the design of the Buckingham dovecote but it was too large and would have been out of place in their garden.
We came up with a half scale version. It was made exactly the same as the full size dovecote including the all-important individual nesting compartments inside.
Having settled on the name “mini Buckingham” we continued to make these from time to time and they looked very nice indeed.
However, there seemed to be something missing.
No birds.
With a Dovecote you introduce your own livestock but how would you get wild birds interested in nesting in the “mini Buckingham”
So we came up with the idea of fitting a door to the nesting box entrance with a 25mm hole in it.
We installed one in our front garden and waited for spring
Trial and error along the way with fat balls, birdfeeders etc was to avail. Just a load of greedy starlings.
Having almost given up, around February with no feed around a pair of bluetits began to become rather inquisitive. Having poked in and out of several holes they settled on one and began to mark the edges.
I have been told since that this is their way of leaving their address so that they will return to the same hole next year.wether it is true or not it’s a lovely thought.
They nested and laid eggs; we had endless hours watching the birds fly back and forth feeding the youngsters. We missed the youngsters when they finally flew off but we new they had gone, as we no longer heard their hungry singing.
They have come back the following season to the same nesting box.
From this we decided to rename it a“Titcote”
By altering the size of the hole we can encourage other species of birds like nuthatches, great tits and house sparrows.
We have added to the range a Birdtable or Birdfeeder to complement the Titcote. It is constructed much the same but has open sides for wild birds to land and take feed.
We cannot guarantee that a pair will nest in every garden situation but we have had many customers who have had success with nesting like our own.
We have further developed the “Titcote” with a splendid lead roof that not only gives it an impressive look but also will last for years. We now build a selection of titcotes in stylish colour ranges by Farrow & Ball.
The titcote name has been adopted by others and even adapted to titcot, but – Beware of any poor imitations – Saville’s hancrafted the Original Titcote.