A potty poet with a shed obsession is spending a week in a wooden hut writing tributes to his favourite garden furniture.

John Davies has taken up residency in an 8ft by 6ft shed at the Booth Museum of Natural History in Brighton this week.

It will be his creative home until Sunday, when he will launch a Shed Appreciation Society Day.

Shed lovers will share stories, mementoes and the finer points of shed life with other experts.

The museum itself is classified as a shed, having been built for ornithologist Edward Booth in 1874 to house his stuffed bird collection.

John, of Preston Park, Brighton, said he drew inspiration from this although he had to dismantle his own shed after it became infested with rats.

He said: "My interest in sheds is lifelong. I remember thinking as a child it would be great to have a shed.

"Some people see them as rather unsavoury but others see them as wonderfully safe, secure places.

"This is a project to celebrate Architecture Week and I won a writer's residency from South East Arts to mark it.

"I thought I would celebrate the great architectural institution of garden sheds and sheds in general.

"I have asked people to come along and bring pictures, photos, stories and jokes about their sheds or sheds they have known.

"A marvellous man came in on Saturday and told me where the best shed in the world is.

"He has drawn me a sort of treasure map and it's on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset. When I get a moment I will go and have an explore.

"I have already met some really interesting people from Germany and even Fiji.

"Sheds are not too common in some tropical places because they tend to get eaten by white ants."

John, 51, who has just published his first work, The Nutter In The Shrubbery, stressed the exhibition was not confined to garden sheds.

He explained: "Sheds are a big feature of the architectural landscape.

"They include supermarkets, DIY centres, aircraft hangars and railway sheds.

"They are all single-storey, getting the maximum space for the minimum cost."

During his residency, he plans to compose about six ditties about sheds.

John can be seen every day until Sunday at the museum in Dyke Road.

Admission is free. There is also a web site at www.shed man.net, which includes questionnaires for poetry lovers and teachers.