Hi all

Please find this webpage - the home of all our forthcoming Pop Up Fayres...

Marquee to be situated outside the Gallery in Hathersage

S32 1DP.

October 18th-19th ( Saturday and Sunday 10am to 5pm )

November 15th-16th ( Saturday and Sunday 10am to 5pm )

December 13th-14th ( Saturday and Sunday 10am to 5pm )

We shall also be appearing at:

Haddon Hall - Mercatum

and Eyam Makers Market - 

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.

The Magic Forest system is the life’s work and creation of Peak District based designer and artist Si Homfray. It is now available as a book and a series of exciting new products.

This is the first work of its kind, the tone of the words, the accessible nature of the presentation, the original art and the overall simplicity of strong and colourful key areas makes an interesting impact.

The book is clearly a system, presented as keywords around a framework of trees, the fundamental areas of all of our lives to be examined and it makes for an exciting exhibition and an original piece of art overall and in itself, if only because of the volume of work and the range of craft that has gone into its creation.

It has been very consciously designed as much to intrigue and inspire self-questioning as it is to help you grow your own Magic Forest out of the today’s ‘real problem’, the modern forest of online contradiction and confusion.

The basic premise and an inclusive process.

The starting point was to create an index or summary of everything to be examined. Si set out to create the simplest framework or system possible for self-examination. The project, by his design nature and the need to simplify and communicate in as clear a way as possible, eventually came out of this long and thorough process as some universal truths, backed up by all the friends, colleagues and customers he had worked with to achieve this work along the way.

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

A working model for everyone and the book he wished for as a young man.

Frustrated by a lifetime of reading contradictory literature, Si set out to find the simplest way or looking at his own life. This cathartic process was partly motivated by the need to write something for his son and partly to lay to rest a lifetime of personal questioning on his own self-improvement. The end result delivered some unexpected surprises…

‘We are all more similar than we are different, we all need each other and kindness is everything.’

It ultimately created a framework of questions, suggestions and quotations that his thirteen year old self would have loved and would have been grateful for. It produced a system to work through, to build your personal wellbeing and stay strong. It felt good to use and gave him goosebumps. The Magic Forest and the nature of wellbeing.

The Magic Forest and the nature of wellbeing

a complete wellbeing system

‘The Magic Forest is a visual system for wellbeing. It is a succinct and elegant system that allows the reader, whether novice or expert, to tackle the complex learning required for complete and balanced physical and mental health - one keyword at a time in a clearly understandable way.’

A fun and easy to use system of 7 trees and 49 keywords.

A unique framework that clearly identifies all the areas for your total wellbeing. Find your own answers for your best self.

‘The Magic Forest and the nature of wellbeing’
launches on the 28^th July 2023. It is a new genre of book and a revolutionary new way of looking at wellbeing.

Official Launch
The Magic Forest officially launches at
3pm on Friday 28^th July at Trafalgar warehouse in the centre of Sheffield S1 4JT.

The book ‘system’, is in essence an elegant forty nine word system growing from seven trees, a framework that encompasses all aspects of wellbeing providing a complete structure to examine our lives from every angle.

‘Deceptively simple, this book covers all the key aspects of mental and physical health to be explored and understood in the reader’s own time, leaving you empowered with a knowledge and reassurance that it is possible to work your own way through to your best life.’

The book, notebook and accompanying key card tools are the life’s work and creation of Peak District based designer and artist Si Homfray. Lovingly conceived, created and crafted over a decade, it is as simple to embrace as it is visually original.

Come and join Si and friends for what is being billed as the beginning of ‘something special’, and at the very least an exciting new exhibition and a friendly atmosphere in these times where some renewed positivity and a smile are so needed.

Over the weekend Friday, Saturday and Sunday.

• Art exhibition - 100 + exhibits
• Book signing - over the weekend
• Shop - Art and products from the new and existing ranges
• 6pm Presentations and a talk by Si about the process and thinking behind the system
• Food, drink, seating & music available everyday

Bar until 10pm Fri and Sat

Products from 28^th July
Copies of the book, accompanying products as well as a range of art and launch items will be available online through the website: parkdesigns.co.uk

The Magic Forest and the nature of wellbeing
ISBN 978-1-7394657-0-4
192pp Hardback