Hi everyone,

Thank you for everything 2025. It's been a good year and despite all manner of craziness behind the scenes we have managed to push things forward well in an organic manner.

Don't forget our Xmas Quiz fun, you could win £250 worth of vouchers!

There will be quite a few changes for 2026, which I'll post as soon as everything is firmed up.

Meanwhile we all wish you a restful Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Website Orders
Last orders for a Christmas delivery are now finished, and apologies in advance if correspondence is minimal over the Christmas holidays.

The Gallery, Hathersage.
We will be closed on Tuesday December 23rd 2025
and 
we will reopen Tuesday January 6th 2026.

Kindest regards as ever,

Si
Si Homfray.

Si has been as busy as ever, creating a series of animals for art and later for a series of products.

But as ever with Si, scratch the surface and there's a little bit more story to tell...

Deer - is the first work to emerge from this new look, a brand new series of strong colourful art created here in Hathersage in the Peak District.

It was great to set about a project that has been tickling me since I did the Owls project all those years ago. 

Step 1 - Write the words!

The deer silently, without asking for acknowledgement,

stands with great dignity, an oasis of calm in forest chaos.
The keeper of tradition and the woodland values of
sharing, support, love and kindness to all creatures.

The basic idea was to create a series of characters, traits and endearing animals.

The fox dreams of playful games
the woodland prepares itself for the dawn
as leaves rustle around her and 
the stars go to bed.

The essence of Wild Woodland draws down on a lifetime of woodland creature fascination, it pulls on a childhood of Wind in the Willows inspiration, and delighting in finding the humanity of all of us further to Si's Magic Forest project.

There are touches of the totem pole in this new forest, Si has taken Native American art as a starting point and the key sentiment of ‘we are all a little bit of a great many things’, to deliver a collection of Wild Woodland creatures, who take us on a exuberant joyous voyage through everything it is to be alive and human through their eyes.

Step 2 - The brief was to deliver a work:

1) in my own style 
2) that exuded positivity, 
3) that offered some kind of insight into how all of us 'take small elements of each other' to create a full character
4) a system that can provide a useful matrix for other applications and products
5) a range of smaller pieces of work that were independently fun to create and had that had something more to offer whichever way they were presented

Time will tell, and your feedback, whether this was achieved.

:I loved doing it, I hope you love it a little bit too."

The moth, it is told, is the oldest and the youngest 
at one and the same time. Eternally seeking light and 
spreading news of new dawns and hope. There is no 
dark where moth lands, only light and colour.

Wild Woodland is part of the Love Nature range of work by Si Homfray.

We look forward to seeing which products emerge from this series of colourful drawings.

Christmas Quiz

Congratulations and a big thanks to everyone who entered.

The Winners and the Winning Answers to the Park Designs Xmas Competition were.

The winners were:
Main Prize - £250 in Gift Vouchers
L. Bell, Marple.
and the  
Runners up - £50 in Gift Vouchers
were
 S. Haywood and J. Green. 

Here’s to a great 2026 and a Happy New Year everyone.

Kindest as ever,

Si

Win £250 in GIFT VOUCHERS 
by entering our brand new crossword quiz.

1  FREE to enter. Simply sign up to our mailing list. 
Then follow us on instagram or facebook.

2 Answer the 25 crossword questions throughout December. One is revealed every day on our social feeds. The quiz starts on Dec. 1st and the last question is revealed on Xmas day, Dec. 25th.

3 Fill out the crossword sheet, downloadable from this quiz page, and email your completed sheet of answers to hello@parkdesigns.co.uk All successfull entries will be entered into a prize draw.

4 The £250 gift voucher & two £50 runners up winners will be announced on Wed Jan 7th 2026 via this website quiz page & social media.

Competition rules:
No purchase is necessary. 
The Park Designs Christmas Quiz competition is open to everyone except staff and colleagues.

The Gift Vouchers are not exchangeable for cash. The Gift Vouchers are only exchangeable for Park Designs product as shown on our website through our Hathersage Shop. 

Entries close: January 3rd 2026. 
All entries must be submitted by email to: hello@parkdesigns.co.uk
One entry per household. Please don’t email us for more information, we are a small business and this is our busiest time of year.

Competition rules:
No purchase is necessary. 
The Park Designs Christmas crossword quiz is open to everyone except staff and colleagues.

The Gift Vouchers are not exchangeable for cash. The Gift Vouchers are only exchangeable for Park Designs product as shown on our website through our Hathersage Shop. 
Entries close: January 3rd 2026. 
All entries must be submitted by email to: hello@parkdesigns.co.uk
One entry per household. Please don’t email us for more information, we are a small business and this is our busiest time of year.

There will be one winner of a £250 Gift Voucher, and 2 subsequent winners of £50 Gift Vouchers.

The Quiz
There are 25 answers.
These answers are to be written down on the crossword answers sheet supplied on the quiz page and when completed to be submitted by email to hello@parkdesigns.co.uk by January 3rd 2026.
We suggest supplying a photograph of your answer sheet attached to your email is probably the easiest way of submission. Other cleverer solutions will be accepted.
 
Most of the correct answers are about National Parks.
The Quiz is set by Si Homfray of Park Designs. 
Si Homfray and Park Designs accept no responsibility or liability in the event of misunderstanding, late submission or any matter whatsoever that may adversely affect the competitors’ submission.

The answers to the quiz are correct at the time of publishing Dec 2025, and the competition organisers' answer is correct for the purposes of this competition.

This competition has been published in good faith and in the spirit of Park Designs’ ethos which is one of kindness, consideration and understanding. We are a small business and time poor, so no discussion will be held further to the answers accuracy or any other matter surrounding this competition.

The correct answers are the answers decided by Si Homfray and Park Designs and these answers are final and non negotiable. That said, they are unlikely to be controversial.

The Prize draw
After entries close, all the correct answers will be put into a bag and then in a witnessed process, one correct answer will be drawn from all the correct answers blindly.
First out of the hat wins the prize.
This process will be videoed and broadcast on Jan 8th 2026
The winners will be notified by email before or shortly after January 8th 
Winners names ( as submitted ) will published on the website competition blog page. 

Good luck and thank you for entering!

Love

Si

Download your Quiz Cross word here >

Ancient Traditions meets Contemporary Art

Prolific Peak District artist and graphic designer, Si Homfray has designed this year’s well dressings in the historic village of Stoney Middleton. 

The designs are a tribute to Ethel Haythornthwaite, environmental campaigner, activist and poet (1894-1986). As pioneer of the countryside movement; Ethel’s tireless campaigning ensured a greenbelt around Sheffield and led to the formation of the Peak District National Park in 1951. 

Si’s depiction of Ethel, drawn in his signature, highly-stylised and optimistic approach, and then painstakingly brought to life by dedicated volunteers from the village, sees her looking over the sheer beauty of the Peak District. 

Well dressing is one of the most ancient traditions of this country. This local custom, unique to Derbyshire and the Peak District, sees springs or wells adorned with pictures, created entirely by hand, made of natural materials such as petals and seeds. 

Si has designed two of the three dressings in Stoney Middleton. The Main Well Dressing can be found on The Nook, near St Martin’s Church and Bath House Gardens Well Dressing at a spring near the old Roman Baths. Whilst the Children’s Well Dressing (which can be found at the entrance to a house on The Nook) has been designed by a team of young people from the village.

In search of inspiration, Si undertook a great deal of research including reading about previous well dressing designs which have ranged from Biblical references to current topical and political issues to beautiful celebrations of the landscape, the park, the flora and fauna.

“I looked at a great many things until a wonderful series of happenstances presented Ethel. I had the great privilege to handle the original map that Ethel and Gerald created and marked up with the proposed green belt boundary and the initial Peak District National Park boundary. I was tasked by the countryside charity, CPRE to reproduce the map for the launch of Helen Mort’s book, ‘Ethel’.”

“Helen’s book is tremendous. I was very much moved by Helen’s beautiful writing and by the ideas expressed in Ethel’s long-form poem, ‘The Pride of the Peak’ where she walks around the wonderful detail of what makes the Park so magnificent.”

“The heartfelt introduction to Helen’s book from Dame Fiona Reynolds, former head of the National Trust also resonated with me deeply. Fiona eloquently tells us how important Ethel’s work was then and how it is even more important now to have these spaces, for so many reasons, not least, essential decompression, outdoor activities and mental health. These reasons are incredibly close to my heart too” Si explains. 

Designing the well dressing was very much an organic process for Si. Inspired by Ethel’s motivation and sharing her passion for public green spaces, he eventually settled on a tribute to this iconic countryside pioneer. 

“After much deliberation, it became obvious that ultimately, I wanted to make a statement about the sheer beauty of the park, so I started there.”

“In my mind I saw Ethel sat on her beloved horse overlooking everything we love so dearly today, the moorland, the crags, the reservoirs, the wildlife and the heather. The view from Bamford Edge has always summed up a little bit of ‘everything Peak District’ to my mind and so I set about a new drawing from this treasured place.”

After presenting his initial sketches to the Stoney Well dressing team, it became apparent that the blue skies might present a problem for the gathering team who collect the petals, bark and other necessary decoration for the clay pressing. Blue and turquoise in particular, is difficult to find at this time of year in this area.

“After a few redraws and simplifications of the foreground heather, I settled for a series of colour bands for the sky that felt reminiscent of the best moments watching the sunset, where the sun goes down and the sky becomes a rainbow of warm colours. Such a joy, such memories.”

Reflecting on the Well Dressing process as a whole, Si concluded: “My time working with this team of passionate, enthusiastic and energised and experienced volunteers was both humbling and profoundly moving. I am so flattered to have been allowed to be a part of this team and this process. I’m beyond delighted that my work has been embraced and lovingly reproduced in one of the oldest traditions of this country.”

“I do hope people love their final work, I’m sure they will. After all the stresses have died down, hopefully we will all get a quiet minute to reflect on the achievements of Ethel, such a strong pioneering woman, as well as such as strong team and a such a brilliant community of creative people here in Stoney Middleton. The Peak District National Park is so important for all of us.”

Press Release  |  August 2025   |   Molly Scott.

The final work 'Swifts' from the Roman Baths house can be seen online by clicking on the image below:

Save the date for the weekend...

Sat Apr 12th to Sun Apr 13th, 10am to 5pm 

Summer is here - A lot has happened and a lot more is going to happen - yey!

An unabashed celebration of positivity is what is required and this summer is going to be a good one in the land of Park Designs celebration of the joy of everything upbeat.

• A New Exhibition ‘Lost and Found’ is announced
• Mugs are fully back in stock
• Its now easier to find things with 2 new website pages
• New products are going to continuously appear very soon
• Park Designs is still moving forward

Moving everything forward

So what’s coming and what’s new
There will be new lines across the board, and a few lovely surprises to boot. Uncharacteristically I’m going to keep sshttum until this actually happens to make it more worthwhile.

With a business hat on I have quietly building the business behind the scenes finding new suppliers and new products at good prices.
As an artist I have been committing to and deciding what is really important to say and as a designer I have been making sure that the quality keeps going upwards.

Just thank you
Thank you for being so patient with me, thank you for staying the course. I am so proud of my customers and suppliers, many of whom have become friends now. The following is growing quite quickly at the moment which is both flattering and humbling since I feel that constant frustration to deliver the next piece and strive to do so relentlessly.

New Products page and a Special Offer page.
The best way for us to move forward was to create a couple of pages on the website. This way the latest products can automatically pop up as they appear at the top of a page and customers don’t have to go through the whole website to find the special offers.

Special Offers Page 

Latest Products Page 

There is FREE DELIVERY on all orders if you use the code PDFREE24 at checkout

Please Note: Only one code can be used at a time.

A New Exhibition

A NEW departure featuring completely new work coming this Autumn.
Si is putting together a series of 'one offs'. He will be hand building original artworks from full scale sculptural steel/wood/paper interactive pieces to small 3D wall art.

‘Lost and Found’
‘This latest artistic work from si homfray explores new ways of looking at your best life. A thoughtful and artistic exploration of the many things you probably need to bring with you, and a few you don’t, to make the most of your biggest journey - life itself’.

Opening October running into November 2024.
with fundraising auction to follow.
More details to follow in the next newsletter.

Park Designs the business

Always striving to be different, to stand out from the crowd and deliver something that is truly heartfelt, positive, meaningful and something you can believe in.

Park Designs still stands for what it has always stood for…

• 1 Quality - Striving for the best products and professional practises
• 2 Product - that is actually useful and art that is meaning full
• 3 Care - for everyone concerned with the project, customers and suppliers alike. Care for everything and how it is made, an environmental sensitivity
• 4 Passion - A heartfelt love for everything outdoors, the flora and fauna we need to treasure, from National Parks to the smallest patches of loved greenery in our cities.

Living by my principles...
It would be the easier road to sell everyone something with designs and art they may have seen before, to deliver the same old familiarity, but with my artists head on I can’t. With my business head on I can see why I should perhaps compromise, but my dad would never have let me do compromise. His favourite quote after a lifetime of working for big business was ‘be fired with enthusiasm or be fired with enthusiasm’.
I’ll take that dad and will continue to live by it.

On the subject of quality and price

A few NEW Prices and Pricing.
As you are probably well aware I have worked hard to keep prices consistent from day one and for the most part most prices haven’t gone up for nearly six years now. I have made sure there have been no big price hikes and that there has been a pricing consistency with no surprises. This philosophy remains steadfast today.

The exception being the beautiful work of Duchess China and the Fine Bone China Mugs who have had to raise their prices with the last batch.
 Duchess 1888 and their ceramic work is now in the very best of British retailers and I am so proud to be supplied by them alongside the great names of Fortnum and Masons, Harrods, Chatsworth House, The House of Commons and most of the top British designers, in fact just about anyone who is anyone these days retailing the Best ceramics in the world.

Thankyou for reading.

Love and Kindest,

Si
X

A NEW departure featuring all original work coming this Autumn.

Si is putting together a series of 'one offs' original artworks from full scale sculptural steel/wood/paper interactive pieces to small 3D wall art.

Lost and Found

‘This latest artistic work from si homfray explores new ways of looking at your best life. A thoughtful and artistic exploration of the many things you probably need to bring with you, and a few you don’t, to make the most of your biggest journey - life itself’.

Opening October running into November 2024.
with fundraising auction to follow.
More details to follow

Finally...
‘Fans, friends and followers of Si will find the long anticipated new larger scale ‘sculptural’ pieces, and some unusual fusions of materials and objects.
A series of original pieces, fun playful and interactive - it promises to be a joy.’

The Great British Treasure Hunt

49 packages of treasure are being hidden around the great beauty spots of this country’s national parks and most treasured visitor attractions.

Each parcel celebrates a very special word and launches another word from the magic forest’s system for wellbeing.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - 

Every week new treasure with a new word is being hidden.

All you have to do is find it at the location described and using the What 3 Words clues.

SOON

#12  Commit - Lake District - tbc

#11  Sleep - Lake District - tbc

OUT THERE

13  Humility - Lake District - Stickle Tarn - infinite.latest.wolves

10  Safety   Hathersage    Peak District    horns.spruced.friend
Found: Bal Kaur - 30-11-2022

9    Tribe    Brecon Beacons    Pen Y Fan    online.cakes.technical   

8    Friends    Peak District    Padley Gorge    varieties.snail.urgent 
Found?: Visitors are reporting this as found - but I have had no notification yet.

7    Honesty    Peak District    Birchens Edge    deleting.internet.hobble   
Found: Dean Wilson - 11-12-2022

6    Happiness    Peak District    Win Hill    flocking.goose.moment    

5    Confidence    Lake District    Helvellyn    last.nooks.unable    
Status: Package disappeared with the summit cairn.

4    Giving    Peak District    Castleton, Cavedale    puppy.presume.thrusters   - Found: Janice Rush

3    Bravery    Peak District    Stanage Edge - Unconquerables    trout.grass.former    Found: David Blewett

2    Sharing    Snowdonia    Tryfan    judge.spindles.noises    

1    Kindness    Peak District    Laurencefield    devalued.lemmings.this  ( previously: carpentry.ending.pancake ) 
Found: Zoe Burrows - 19-11-2022

 Inside every tin is a minimum of:
• 50% Discount card off any Park Designs products online or in store
• 1st edition A5 Fine Art print of the word, a limited edition print
• Usually a T Shirt

Thank you for reading and good luck hunting!

Kindest,

Si

x

New Exhibition coming very soon…

eye of the beholder

‘An artistic examination of the extraordinary fine detail and elegance that already 
exists in the natural world contrasted with the finest contemporary digital pattern’.

 

Si has been working on creating a totally new graphic design style for a long time now and this collection of works will highlight the wonderful detail of the natural world and highly colourful contrasting pattern abstracts.

This celebration will be presented through a series of featured living things, the collected focus of the new works.

from march 2nd 2024
an exhibition by si homfray

to be held in the
Park Designs Hathersage Gallery & Shop

3a Hathersage Business Park,
Heather Lane,
Hathersage,
Derbyshire
S32 1DP

There are so many takeaways for this weekend… but the most important one is there was

a whole lot of love

The event glowed from start to finish with an open, all embracing team of kindly individuals and a steady flow of new and existing customers who quickly grasped the sentiment behind the event.

The people involved with and surrounding the whole Park Designs project from the start have been extraordinary. #somanygoodfriends

Wonderful, kind, warm people who enthuse as much as I do about the wellbeing project, my art and the general feeling that has embraced everything and still does, a glow of pride and a sense of warmth that emanates from the sharing and being all part of the same thing.

It’s a warm thing that we all know is necessary right now.

Love as always

Si
x

Browse: the Magic Forest products

Book launch & art exhibition

A magic acorn for today

Fri 28th to Sun 30th July 2023

Open all weekend, Trafalgar warehouse, 120 Trafalgar Street, Sheffield, S1 4JT

Free admission, everyone welcome

The official launch of the Magic Forest, Come and see the book, see the art exhibition, shop in the magic forest or listen to a talk about the extensive design process by local Peak District artist Si Homfray.

Come and join Si for the book launch, all the the new art and more... 

Over the weekend

•  Art exhibition - 100 + exhibits
•  Book signing - over the w/e
•  Shop - Art and products from the new and existing ranges
•  Presentations
•  Food, drink, seating & music available everyday
•  Bar until 10pm Fri and Sat

FREE Goody bag to the first 100 visitors. may contain Magic Beans !

Friday 28th July
1pm     Open - 10pm Close
3pm    Official book launch,
Press opportunities.
6pm    Presentation by Si about the process and thinking behind the system

Saturday 29th July
10am Open - 10pm Close
6pm    Presentation by Si about the process and thinking behind the system

Sunday 30th July
10am - 4pm Close

Trafalgar Warehouse, Sheffield, S Yorks. S1 4JT

‘Lovingly conceived, created and crafted over a decade, the system is as simple to embrace as it is visually original’.

The Magic Forest
a complete system for wellbeing.
A fun and easy to use system of 7 trees and 49 keywords.
A unique, simple framework that clearly identifies the most important areas for your total wellbeing. Find your own answers to all the questions for your best self.