It all started in 1855 with the Ackland-Snow’s operating a plumbing and gasfitting company who then decided to add shopfitting to their brief. In 1898 they started making scenery for London Theatres, notably making props for Maskelyne and Devant, famous magicians at the time. Their business was so successful that over the years they increased their workshop space to eventually owning several of the Hammersmith Arches and began producing scenery for London Theatres.

(Photo left to right: Great grandfather Frederick, Great Uncle Matthew, Great Great grandad Matthew, Great Uncle Harry)

The scenery theme continued into the 2nd world war with my grandad Frank (son of Frederick) making decoy planes and tanks from scenery to fool German bombing runs. After the war Ackland Snows Ltd gained a contract with the BBC to supply scenery for a huge amount of BBC shows.

Frank’s four sons stayed in the industry, Two stayed to run the family company (Barry and Keith) and the two other brothers moved into Film Art department (my father Terry and my uncle Brian). The company made scenery for a huge amount of BBC Shows but also delved into Theme Park construction notably phase one of both EuroDisney and Legoland, The company stopped operating in 1995.

Two of Franks sons moved Into Feature Film in the 1960’s. Brian went on to win a Production Design Oscar and BAFTA for ‘Room with a View’ and Terry worked on some cult classics and many of the best known films of the 70’s, 80’ and 90’s. Terry set up a film design school over twenty years ago that is still operating within Pinewood Studios, England.

Terry’s son Dom started his career at Ackland-Snows Ltd, Moving into film construction in 1991. His first construction Managers role was in 2004.

In 2012 Dom and his wife Nicky started Stringybark Ltd, initially catering for commercials and Promos, then moving to Indies and Feature.

In September 2022 they set up a new branch to their company, Stringybark Creative, producing creative construction to Commercials, Exhibitions, Promos, Immersive Environments and Events.