About a find from the 1950s, a gold medal at Chelsea and a tool that respects the soil.
There are tools you buy, use and replace after a few seasons. And there are tools you come across: in a shed, in an estate, in the hands of someone who knows what good quality is. The story of the Thornett Trowel begins with the latter. It begins with a hand trowel that nobody had ordered, nobody had designed for the market, and yet it did exactly what it was meant to do. For over sixty years now.
A shed in 2023
In 2023, Sid Hill cleared out the shed belonging to his grandmother, Janet Elizabeth Thornett. She had passed away shortly before. Amongst the tools that his grandfather had once made himself (sometime in the 1950s or 1960s, in the garage, without a manual or blueprint) lay a hand trowel. Its blade was curved, made entirely of steel, and still in perfect condition after decades of intensive use. No rust. No warping. No loose handle.
For most people, that would have been a special memory. Something to cherish, but not necessarily to put to use. For Sid Hill, it was different. Hill is an ecological garden designer, someone who approaches his work from the ground up. He knows what mycorrhizal networks are, why soil structure is fragile, and what happens if you dig too roughly through the earth with the wrong tools. He picked up the hand trowel, looked at the blade, and saw it straight away.
The curved shape of the blade did something that conventional tools rarely do: it cut a clean, round, cylindrical planting hole, without twisting, prying or compacting the surrounding soil. Simply in, straight down, and done. The soil around the hole remained undisturbed. The mycelium intact. The structure preserved.
Hill took the hand trowel to work with him. And started using it to do some gardening every day.
Chelsea Flower Show 2024: gold for the soil
The RHS Chelsea Flower Show is the world’s most prestigious horticultural exhibition. Every year, the finest garden designers of the moment showcase their work there, with gardens that must be both skilful and visionary. In 2024, Sid Hill was one of them.
His entry was called the Microbiome Garden. A garden that celebrated life beneath the soil: the fungi, bacteria and micro-organisms that help plants grow, store carbon and sustain ecosystems. It was not the flower or the tree that took centre stage, but what lies beneath. The invisible infrastructure of every healthy patch of earth.
To create that garden, Hill used his grandmother’s hand trowel. It was a conscious choice, not a sentimental one. The tool was in keeping with the garden’s philosophy: minimal disruption, maximum respect for what is already there.
The Microbiome Garden won gold. And Hill received the Prince of Wales Trophy for Sustainable Horticulture, the highest honour for sustainable gardening awarded by the RHS. The hand trowel from Janet’s shed had proved its professional worth at the very highest level of gardening.
When we heard this story, we knew exactly what we wanted to do.
From shed to forge
Together with Sid Hill, we set about developing a new tool, based on the design of his grandfather’s hand trowel, but made using Sneeboer’s materials and techniques. Made entirely from stainless steel. Induction-hardened blade. And laser-welded from start to finish.
The latter requires some explanation, as it sets us apart from most providers in the sector. For many manufacturers, laser welding is an exceptional process, reserved for special projects or high-value production runs. For Sneeboer, it is the standard, integrated throughout the entire production process. The benefits are considerable: it consumes 60 to 70 per cent less energy than conventional welding, works two to ten times faster, and leaves behind a heat-affected zone that is up to two hundred times smaller. The latter is important for the precision of the end product: less heat means less distortion, less post-processing and a cleaner weld.
We deliberately leave the weld seam visible. Not as a compromise or limitation, but as a choice. It is proof of how the tool is made: transparency as part of the craftsmanship. Anyone holding a Thornett Trowel can see exactly how the blade and handle are joined. No coating to hide anything. No finish to obscure the construction.
Seven iterations for a single weld
But before we got to this stage, there was work to be done. The first prototypes of the Thornett were difficult for our craftsmen to make, particularly the transition between the handle and the blade. At Sneeboer, that transition always has a sleek, polished finish. That’s not a decorative choice; it’s about ergonomics, about how the tool feels in your hand, about whether you can still work comfortably after an hour of gardening. Getting that transition right with the Thornett blade’s specific profile proved to be a technical challenge that we had initially underestimated.
We had taken twenty prototypes to Chelsea 2025. They were sold on the very first day. There was undeniable market interest. But production wasn’t quite ready yet.
At that point, we could have made two choices: lower our quality standards to deliver more quickly, or put more pressure on our staff to meet the volume targets. We chose neither. We went back to the drawing board. Seven iterations, spread over several months. Each round involved adapting, testing and evaluating, until the seam could be produced comfortably by our craftspeople, without compromising the end result in any way.
The market had to wait. That was the right decision, and one that reflects who we are. Sneeboer doesn’t make tools for a single season. We make tools that last for generations. That promise starts with how we manufacture, not how we sell.
How the Thornett Trowel benefits planting and soil health
The curved blade is at the heart of the Thornett Trowel, and the difference lies in the details. Conventional hand trowels are flat or slightly curved, designed for scooping and levering. That works fine for many tasks. But when planting, that movement has a side effect: it compacts the soil around the planting hole, cuts through mycelium and disrupts the aggregates, the small, porous clumps that keep the soil structure healthy and retain water.
The Thornett Trowel enables a different kind of movement. The curved blade cuts a clean, cylindrical planting hole, vertically, without prying or twisting. The soil around the hole remains completely intact. The mycorrhizal networks, the underground connections between plant roots that exchange nutrients, store carbon and make plants more resilient, remain undisturbed. Whatever you plant goes into the ground without disturbing the soil around it.
For anyone who gardens according to no-dig principles, this is no trivial matter. It is the reason why you choose this tool over any other. The same applies to anyone consciously working on soil restoration: less digging, more building up. The Thornett Trowel isn’t just a hand trowel that lasts a long time. It’s a hand trowel that works with the soil rather than against it.
The technical specifications: 55 centimetres long, 700 grams, made entirely of stainless steel. In the hand, it feels just as a Sneeboer tool should: well-balanced, precise, substantial without being obtrusive. It requires no strength; it requires attention.
Named after Janet
Every tool needs a name. We had no doubt as to what that name should be.
Not the name of a designer, not that of an award, not that of a concept. The name of the woman whose husband made a hand trowel that served her well throughout her life, and which, after her death, found its way to us via her grandson. Janet Elizabeth Thornett. The Thornett Trowel.
Every Thornett Trowel comes with a fifty-year guarantee on the steel. But our actual expectations go beyond that. Made entirely of stainless steel, with no coatings, no composite parts, and no screws or rivets that come loose over time. If anything ever goes wrong (and with this tool, we don’t expect it to) it can be repaired. By a professional, through welding, or by re-sharpening. Not thrown away.
Janet’s husband’s hand trowel was still going strong after sixty years. That’s not just a marketing story. It’s proof of what’s possible when you make tools with a genuine focus on the end result: not on the price, not on the delivery time, but on what will still be in the user’s hand in their garden twenty, thirty or forty years from now.
We are proud of this tool. We are proud of the story behind it, of the craftspeople who make it, and of our collaboration with Sid Hill, who made this possible. The Thornett Trowel is not a limited edition, nor is it a tribute that will disappear after a single run. It is a permanent fixture in our range, made to last, just like the hand trowel that inspired it.
Made for those who take the ground seriously, and for those who come after them.