FORMER prime minister David Cameron wrote his just-published memoirs in a shepherd’s hut in the garden of his Cotswold home.

Costing around £25,000, its stylish interior is painted in upmarket Farrow & Ball colours, and has a fold-out double bed and wood-burning stove.

He’s not the only man to have a shepherd’s hut as a retreat. I’ve seen plenty in the Sunday supplements, belonging to artists and novelists, beautifully furnished, usually with generous helpings of scatter cushions. They are becoming so popular they have been dubbed the new man caves.

Isn’t this getting a bit out of hand? We women have accepted that men like their sheds, those sawdust-strewn places they have, for decades, retreated to for solace, where they tinker with pieces of wood, losing themselves for hours until hunger brings them scurrying back to the kitchen.

We were okay with lofts, which men often make their own, sitting up there pretending to be Hendrix on the guitar, building model train sets or reading. My dad could often be found in our loft, sitting listening to jazz, surrounded by boxes of books, old toys and other stuff evacuated from the house.

And we have reconciled ourselves to the concept of men taking over a room in the house to create a space for themselves.

But shepherds’ huts? I wouldn’t care if they were more like the genuine article: battered, mud-caked, weather-beaten structures in wood or corrugated iron, that are about as comfortable inside as a skip.

They are few and far between - I’ve seen a few in Cumbria - but if you come across one you’ll be lucky to find a seat let alone a double bed with 800 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets.

Give a genuine hill farmer David Cameron’s hut and he’d laugh his head off. Those pristine sheets wouldn’t last long, what with sheepdogs bounding all over it with their mucky paws.

These stylish mobile shepherd’s huts, in duck egg blue, with chandeliers and Laura Ashley curtains, are modelled on the 19th century huts on wheels, similar to that used by shepherd Gabriel Oak in Thomas Hardy’s Far from the Madding Crowd.

They cost a pretty penny too. I wouldn’t be happy if my husband suddenly expressed a desire for one. It’s hard enough extracting him from the spider-infested shed. If he had a cosy retreat like that at the bottom of the garden, with a sofa, an easel and a radio I’d never see him.

Shepherds’ huts have become all the rage, not just for artists and novelists, with holiday companies cashing in on their popularity.

Of course it’s not only men. Plenty of women have them too, full to the brim of of Kath Kidston tweeness, and many buy them for the whole family to use.

They are probably a fad, an add-on to the glamping movement, with its luxurious Arabian-style tents and yurts. In time they will be replaced with something else.

I know of a couple of cow byres that would look smashing with a lick of Farrow & Ball, a granite-topped breakfast bar and bi-folding doors to the front. Sanded and polished, the original hay racks could be put to use for storage.

Or a pig sty, the concrete floors of which could be buffed into a glossy finish to complement the contemporary exposed brick walls with built-in pizza oven.

I’ll be steering my husband well away from any thoughts of a shepherd’s hut, although if anyone has a spare dog kennel that could easily converted into a rustic bolt hole, it would be gratefully received. If it has a chain and collar attached, even better.