Shepherd Building Group Ltd is a family owned business, based in York, that manufactures, leases and sells modular buildings in the UK and Europe. Its Portakabin and Portaloo brands are frequently treated as generic terms for modular buildings and toilets. The company was one of the largest privately owned building contractors in the UK, but sold that business to Wates Group in 2015. History In 1890, 35 year old joiner Frederick Shepherd started the business in York. His younger son Frederick Welton Shepherd joined and expanded the firm known, from 1910, as F Shepherd and Son. They diversified from house building to general contracting, and incorporated, in 1924, as F Shepherd and Son Ltd. By the late 1930s there was a workforce of 700 that operated throughout Yorkshire, and also the North East of England. Main contractor The firm undertook extensive work at military sites up to, and during, the Second World War. Post conflict contracts were predominantly public sector, often incorporating prefabricated concrete panel systems developed by CLASP, Wates, and Yorkshire Development Group. In 1962, F Shepherd and Son Ltd reorganised under Shepherd Group Ltd, and land was purchased at Huntington. Initially it was used for manufacturing, but in 1995 the headquarters moved there from Blue Bridge Lane, near the River Ouse. The old headquarters site became a Mecca Bingo hall before that too was demolished to make way for the construction of Frederick House student accommodation in 2022. By 1968, the group employed 6,788 staff. That fell to 3,587 in 1971, and by 2009 there were 3,200. Shepherd Group was a main contractor for leisure, commercial, industrial, residential, healthcare, education, retail, and research buildings. The construction division also included companies engaged in mechanical and electrical services, facility management and housebuilding. Manufactured products In 1951 Donald Shepherd, grandson of the founder, developed a bulk cement silo, for use in precast concrete construction, as an alternative to paper sacks. They were sold to other contractors, initially manufactured from plywood. He changed the construction to metal in 1953, and diverted joinery shop capacity released to the production of portable, prefabricated site huts. He conceived the need for easily portable site shelters on a windswept construction site at Catterick Garrison. Initially the huts were for the firm's own sites, but from 1961 they were sold to other contractors. He called the silos and cabins Portasilo and Portakabin. Donald Shepherd continued product development