Bespoke Gun Cabinets and Gun Rooms in Wales
Hand-made gun cabinets and fitted gun rooms, made in our Suffolk workshop and installed across Wales. Cabinets from £7,000 plus VAT, delivered and installed. Gun rooms from £20,000.
Working in Wales from a Suffolk workshop
We are a Suffolk workshop and we make everything ourselves, which means anything going to Wales travels. We would rather be straightforward about what that involves than pretend distance is irrelevant.
In practice it changes very little. A cabinet is made, finished and fitted out in the workshop, then delivered and installed by our own team in a single visit. We do not hand cabinets to a courier: a gun cabinet has to be bolted to the structure of the building to be adequate storage, and the fixing is the part that determines whether the rest of it counts.
For a full gun room we will always come and look at the room first. That survey is worth the journey, because we are checking wall construction, the door opening, what sits above the ceiling and any window, and those are not things to establish from photographs.
Travel is built into the quoted figure. You will not find a mileage line on the invoice afterwards.
Firearms licensing in Wales
Wales operates under the same firearms legislation as England. The Firearms Act 1968 and the Firearms Rules 1998 apply in exactly the same terms, and the Home Office Firearms Security Handbook is the same guidance your firearms enquiry officer will assess your arrangements against.
That is worth stating because it is not true everywhere in the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland operates under entirely separate legislation with different requirements, and advice written for Northern Ireland does not apply in Wales.
What differs in practice is who you deal with. Firearms licensing in Wales is administered by four territorial police forces: North Wales Police, Dyfed-Powys Police, Gwent Police and South Wales Police. Each has its own firearms licensing department and its own enquiry officers.
As anywhere, adequacy is assessed case by case at your address, taking account of the guns, the property and its location. A remote farmhouse in Powys and a house on the edge of Cardiff are not the same proposition, and the same cabinet may be looked at differently in each.
Which is why we do the same thing in Wales that we do everywhere: agree the specification in writing with your firearms enquiry officer before anything is made. It costs a phone call and it turns the home visit into a confirmation rather than a negotiation.
The specification does not change
Everything we send west is built to the same specification as everything else: steel over 2mm throughout the lined carcass, laminated anti-bandit glass from 21.5mm where doors are glazed, folded steel doors with anti-cut pins, five-lever mortice locks to BS 3621, and fixings anchored into masonry.
For a fitted gun room, we line the room in steel, clad it in timber, fit a steel firearms door clad to match, and then fit all the joinery and racking. We do not do building work, so the room needs to exist before we arrive.
Distance changes the logistics. It does not change what is built.
Timber for Welsh houses
Rather more of what we send west goes into stone-built farmhouses and older country houses than into new-build, and that tends to push the specification the same way each time.
Quarter-sawn oak is the usual answer. It suits the architecture, it is hard enough for a working boot room, and it darkens rather than tires. Where a cabinet is joining genuinely old furniture we will antique the finish, so a new piece does not look conspicuously new against two hundred years of wear.
Where a house is painted throughout, we make in hardwood and hand-paint, so the cabinet joins the existing scheme rather than competing with it. A painted cabinet is not a cheaper cabinet: the carcass, the steel and the locks are identical.
Damp is worth a thought in an older stone building. A sealed, unheated room is very good at putting rust on blued steel, so ventilation is part of the specification rather than an afterthought, and for a valuable collection it is worth discussing humidity control at the drawing stage.
What we make
Glazed cabinets
Laminated anti-bandit glass where the collection is worth seeing.
Solid timber cabinets
Where discretion matters more than display.
Fitted runs
For collections too large for a single cabinet.
Fitted gun rooms
Steel lining, timber cladding and a clad firearms door.
Ammunition storage
Separate and lockable, where the certificate requires it.
Cartridge storage
Wellington chests and drawer banks, matched to the cabinet.
Questions we are asked
Do you actually travel to Wales?
Yes. We make everything at Mickfield in Suffolk and install across the whole of the UK with our own team. Travel is included in the quoted figure rather than added afterwards.
Are the rules different in Wales?
No. Wales operates under the same firearms legislation as England, and the same Home Office guidance applies. What differs is administration: licensing is handled by four territorial forces, so the enquiry officer you deal with depends on where you live.
Will you speak to my firearms enquiry officer?
Yes, and we would insist on it for anything substantial. We set out the proposed specification in writing and agree it with your FEO before manufacture, wherever you are.
Does it cost more because I am further away?
A little, and it is in the quoted price rather than hidden. For a single cabinet the difference is modest. For a room, the survey visit is the main addition.
How long does it take?
From around six weeks for a single cabinet, and typically a few months for a fitted room. Distance adds days rather than weeks. Shooting is seasonal and so is this work, so if you want something in place for the autumn it is worth starting in spring.
All gun cabinets
The overview: what we make, what it costs and how a commission runs.
Fitted gun rooms
Steel lining, timber cladding and a clad firearms door. From £20,000.
What the rules actually say
No law requires a gun cabinet. What the Firearms Rules do require.
Send us your gun list
Send us your gun list and a photograph of the room, and we will come back with a drawing and a price. From £7,000 plus VAT, delivered and installed.
Start a commissionFurther reading: gun room security, and what the rules actually say. Responsibility for the security condition on your certificate rests with you as the certificate holder, and the adequacy of any storage arrangement is a matter for your local police firearms licensing department.