Thwaite Holme
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Made at Dalston since 1972

Kitchen islands and larders

The two pieces people remember, and the two worth making properly. If you remember two things about a good kitchen a year later, they are the island and the larder. They are also the two pieces where buying rather than making costs you the most.

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Contemporary kitchen at Dornock with a curved island and an oval breakfast table built into its end
Kitchen, Burgh by Sands. Fitted September 2025.

The argument

The two pieces worth making properly

An island has to be long enough to work at, deep enough to sit at, and positioned so that two people can pass behind somebody at the hob. Those three dimensions are set by the room, and every one of them is a fixed size in a modular system.

At Dornock we built an island with the breakfast table built into the end of it, curved, so the eating end and the working end are one piece. That is a drawing, not a product code.

A larder is the same argument in the vertical. Full height, doors that open right back, shelves at the depths that suit tins on one shelf and packets on the next, and a worktop inside it for the things that live out.

KITCHEN ISLANDS AND LARDERS · SPECIFICATIONThwaite Holme · Lingey Close · Dalston
Carcass
Birch ply, cut and machined at Dalston, lipped
Island
Any length the room takes, in one piece
Larder
Full height to your ceiling, shelves at your depths
Painted
Pre-primed in-house, hand-painted on site in water-based eggshell
Timber
Two-pack lacquer, satin, tough and maintenance free
Worktop
Quoted with the kitchen
Made at
Dalston
Fitted by
Our own men
Trading since
1972
Drawings kept
Always

From our own jobs

Rooms we have already made.

Contemporary kitchen at Dornock with a curved island and an oval breakfast table built into its end
Open-plan hand-painted kitchen at Burgh by Sands with a navy island, integrated wine store and a glazed dresser run over herringbone parquet
Kitchen at Carrfoot Lodge, Mansergh, with arched windows, a white island and turned wooden stools
Blue in-frame kitchen under a sash window, with a white worktop and cup handles

An island assembled from standard boxes is as long as those boxes allow. A larder bought as a product is as tall as that product. Ours are as long and as tall as your room.

Named and dated

Real houses, with the month on them.

01Burgh by SandsA navy island and a glazed dresser run, Burgh by SandsSeptember 202502BassenthwaiteUnder the trusses of a barn, BassenthwaiteAugust 202503Red HallA plate rack, a range and a pine table, Red HallAugust 202404ManserghArched windows and a white island, Carrfoot LodgeFebruary 202405MealsgateA painted canopy under sash windows, the Old VicarageFebruary 2023

Where we work

Cumbria, and over the border.

We fit our own furniture across north Cumbria and into Dumfriesshire. Two of the jobs on this site are in Scotland, in the same house, two years apart.

Kitchen islands and larders: what people ask

How long can you make an island?

As long as the room will take and the worktop will span. Because we build the carcasses here it is not assembled from standard boxes with a joint in the middle, which is usually what limits a bought one.

Can the island have a table built into it?

Yes. We did exactly that at Dornock, with the table curving out of the end of the island so the two are one piece rather than a table pushed up against a cupboard.

The rest of the house

We make all of it.

01Bespoke kitchensMade in our own workshop at Dalston, and fitted by our own men.See the work02Fitted bedrooms and wardrobesWardrobes cut to the wall you have, not the wall a catalogue assumed.See the work03Boot rooms and utility roomsThe room that takes the weather, the dog and the washing.See the work04Dressing roomsA spare bedroom turned into the room you get ready in.See the work05Home offices and studiesDesk, shelves and cupboards built into the room as one piece of furniture.See the work06Media walls and TV unitsThe television, the boxes and the cables, put away inside the joinery.See the work07Free-standing furnitureWhere Bob Postlethwaite started in 1972, and we still make it.See the work

Talk to the workshop

Come and see one before you buy one.

01228 710085
Book a showroom visitor come in. No appointment needed to look round.
Lingey Close, Dalston, Carlisle, Cumbria, CA5 7LB. Parking on site.
Monday to Thursday
8am – 5pm
Friday
8am – 3.30pm
Saturday
8am – 12pm
Sunday
Closed