The humble birthplace of Ken Tyrrell’s first Formula 1 grand prix-winning machines, as well as the current Mercedes team, is the stuff of legend. It remains in exactly the same spot where it has stood for more than 70 years — but only for a few more days.
Last week, work began to dismantle the building and move it to Goodwood, a rescue mission that saves the historic shed from the threat of demolition.
It will be restored and stand on a prominent site next to the Motor Circuit, and is expected to play a part in both Members’ Meeting and Revival displays.
Asbestos roof has doubled cost of removing shed
Although far from its original location, it should still evoke a period in F1’s history when garagistas were just that, taking on the mighty Ferrari and Lotus from factories and sheds.
Five years after Tyrrell entered its first world championship grand prix, it won the constructors’ title. “That was a big deal,” Stewart told Motor Sport in 2022, “and all the more so when you consider the team was run from a shed.”
When we visited the quiet corner of Ockham Village last week, scaffolding already surrounded the shed, which has more recently been used as a storage building for a party supplies company, but still regularly attracted fans from around the world.
Where designer Derek Gardner once led the building of Stewart’s 1971 world championship-winning car, crates of paper plates, party hats and balloons filled the gloomy space.
Stewart and Tyrrell (at non-championship Questor GP) won the drivers’ and constructors’ titles in ’71
Bernard Cahier/Getty Images
Still solid, but with wood panels clearly deteriorating, there remained plenty of clues to its previous life: holes for extractor vents in the walls and — unmistakably — its double front doors opening out onto the very same concrete pad where Tyrrell and Gardener rolled out their latest creations.
Its 30mx8m dimensions bely the monumental achievements that it produced. More than a minor footnote in F1’s history, it’s a rare reminder of how the sport was shaped by pockets of engineers in small workshops, bringing their groundbreaking ideas to life and then sending them around the world on racing’s biggest stages.
In fact, the team’s small size — comprising just seven engineers — was an advantage, according to Ken Tyrrell in a 1970 British Pathé film. “We’re not involved in the politics that large companies get involved in,” he said. “Our aim is to win motor races and we’re able to concentrate on that.”
But the £100,000 cost of removing the building (half of that due to its asbestos roof), was proving an insurmountable obstacle to potential custodians until our story was seen by the Duke of Richmond, who stepped in to offer a new permanent home to the historic building on his Goodwood estate.
He plans to rebuild it on the outfield of the Motor Circuit before this year’s Members’ Meeting on 13-14 April, when spectators will be able to see it on the Hurricane Lawn, behind the Woodcote grandstand that overlooks the run to the final chicane.
Then: in 1971
Now: as storage unit
For Ross Feeney, director of operations at Club Green, the party supplier that now owns the site, it is likely to mark the end of a stream of international visitors who arrive, year round, on a racing pilgrimage to the shed.
“We have people every week who come here to do a slow lap around the car park or who knock on the door asking if they can see inside the shed,” he says. “Fans come from all over Britain and Europe, as well as Thailand, Australia and the US. Everyone wants their picture taken in front of the blue doors”.
After Ken Tyrrell sold his F1 team, a disagreement with the new boss ended an unbroken 30-year stint in the GP paddock. Matt Bishop recalls watching the next race on TV with the man who won the World Championship from a Surrey shed
By
Matt Bishop
The shed’s history begins long before the Tyrrell Racing Organisation was conceived, having seen service during the war as a hit for the Women’s Royal Army Corps. In his Ken Tyrrell biography, Christopher Hilton writes that the Tyrrell family bought it for £50 to serve as a wood shed for their Ockham timber yard.
The wood was shipped out when Ken set up his Formula 2 team in the 1950s, and it became the Formula 1 headquarters a decade later. Although the team did expand with more staff and buildings in the 1970s, the shed remained a core part of the team, hosting welding, fabrication and trim departments through the 1980s. As the new factory, built immediately next door, expanded, it reverted to a storage shed for truckies who deposited packing cases and pit equipment there between races.
Ken Tyrrell outside the shed in 1971
Grand Prix Photo
By then, Tyrrell’s glory days were gone. A scattering of podium finishes by Jean Alesi, Stefano Modena and Mark Blundell in the 1990s proved to be the final throes of the team, which was sold to British American Racing in 1997 and moved to Brackley. Via Honda and Brawn, it would eventually evolve into the mighty Mercedes outfit.
Enter Club Green, which was in search of a Norfolk base. It bought the site and began using the shed for storage.
“We made a commitment that for as long as reasonably practical we would keep the shed,” said Feeney, who regularly interrupts his work to greet fans who have made the trip.
“We now want to expand the operation and, from our perspective, the shed is in the way. We have been looking for a home to preserve it for several years.”
Nearby Brooklands was initially interested, but the cost of removing the asbestos roof proved prohibitive. Then, with demolition threatening, Motor Sport’s coverage led to an agreement with Goodwood which could have the shed if it paid to take it away.
“It was pre-constructed and comes in five sections, so it’s easy to take apart,” said Feeney. “But it does need some repairs. We’ve had to patch some of the roof with felt and filled in the occasional hole or gap.
Famous doors show signs of wear
Village signs recognise Tyrrell
Shed is now swamped by other buildings and cars
Tyrrell’s former home won’t become anonymous: there are signs referencing the famous team at the entrance to the village, as well as the site. And there are also plans to mark where the shed stood when it is replaced with a single-storey factory extension.
But first, there’s just one final nod to the past: thanks to a Lotus dealer that rents part of the site. The badges of Tyrrell’s old rival glint opposite the scaffolding, not that Colin Chapman would recognise much in common between his cars and the latest £100,000 2.5 ton electric Lotus Eletres.
“Do you know what that is?” says one of the dealership staff, arriving alongside a younger colleague. “That’s the shed where they built Jackie Stewart’s F1 car”
It’s no surprise to see the incredulous look on the passenger’s face. Dwarfed by surrounding buildings, shipping crates and even Lotus’s SUVs, the shed, former Tyrrell F1 headquarters is an almost unimaginable relic of how F1 once was.
