About Winged Heart
Winged Heart is a small studio workshop based at Brampton in Cumbria near Hadrian's Wall and the Lake District. Such surroundings encourage and inspire our wide range of innovative products and designs.
We started up Winged Heart at our home twelve years ago, and moved into our present light and airy studio in the Old Brewery in 1997. It is a beautiful old pink sandstone building with exposed wooden beams a few minutes walk from the centre of our small market town. Read our introductory letter. |
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Our Products and Designs
Our first products were round window decorations, framed with traditional lead and hung with trace chain, in various sizes. We call them Roundels, which is a word used for round stained glass pieces in times gone by. First we made 6" diameter Roundels, and then we brought out a range of very small pieces, 2.5" in diameter, which we called Roundelettes. Both of these products are still extremely popular and now we produce them in all kinds of designs from Flowers and Birds to Celtic and our lovely Cathedral Window reproductions.
As time passed we added further products to our range which we have originated using our special technique of hand-painted glass. The first was a small square glass jewellery box with a mirror in the bottom, and made with delicate silver (nickel-plated copper) frames. We call these Mirror Boxes. After this we brought out our ‘Photocard’ photoframes - free standing decorated hinged frames with a photograph holder on one side and a design on the other.
Two or three years ago we thought up a new style of small window decoration, framed with our pretty silver coloured frames and incorporating two small Swarovski crystals. These we call our Crystal Pendants. Since then we've introduced larger Photoframes, Jewel Cases, Clocks, Greetings Cards incorporating hand painted Window Stickers, and Triangle Boxes.
In 2007, we brought our our first range of mirrors. Most of these are gift boxed (apart from the very large mirrors). They have been extremely popular in our specialist shops, and on-line from us.
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Just about everything you see in our finished products is done here by us or by our home painters and assemblers both locally and nearby over the border in Scotland. We cut sheets of glass into all shapes and sizes, and then hand-print the black outlines of the designs on to the glass. The prints are very fine, and we use a silk screen method. It is a skilled operation. Our hard-working ladies in their homes then hand-paint the colours on to the glass. Finally each glass item is assembled by hand and framed with a traditional stained glass finish of lead, or, in the case of our Crystal Window Pendants, with elegant nickel-plated copper. Everything is very attractively gift boxed, as we find it makes a lot of difference. We prefer to hand-paint our glass using our non-fired lacquers, because we can achieve much lovelier colours than we could if we used fired enamels, which are generally very dull and uninspiring. It also allows us to offer our gifts at less expensive prices. Please forgive the odd blemish, as our things are made by people, not machines!
You will find our products here in the UK in many cathedral gift shops and heritage outlets, as well as high quality gift and craft shops. We also send our work abroad to Europe, America and Japan |
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People at Winged Heart
Apart from ourselves, Drew and Mara, we have a great team of people both in the studio here and in their homes. We are a true 'cottage industry'!
The office here is run extremely well by Gillian. Carolyn, our production manager, ensures that orders go out on time and looks after our glass cutter, printers, and assemblers (Christine, Sandra, Jenna and Pauline), as well as our home workers and hand painters, who produce beautiful work. |
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Mara Eagle
Mara studied Classics and read Greek and Latin at Bristol University where she gained a B.A. (Hons.) degree. She then worked in London at the Tate Gallery as Personal Assistant to Sir Norman Reid. She married Drew Landsborough in 1975. After spending some time travelling, she worked with Drew designing and making stained glass gifts. They started up Winged Heart Stained Glass in 1995. Mara has a great interest in producing ‘formal’ style designs. She loves the art of the Ancient Greeks, Celts and Egyptians and medieval stained glass and enjoys designing imaginatively out of her head. |
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Drew McClamroch Landsborough
Drew gained a degree in Philosophy and English at the University of Lampeter, Wales, and then obtained a post-graduate DMS diploma in Management Studies. It was Drew's contact with the ancient stained glass of Canterbury Cathedral which started him and Mara off on their present career. He began by teaching himself the old ways of making fired stained glass, rediscovering original medieval techniques. Drew still loves looking at, and reproducing, ancient stained glass, and his re-drawings and re-interpretations of some of the most famous cathedral windows in Britain are extremely popular. They make ideal decorations and reminders of these wonderful buildings which are an important part of our cultural heritage. |
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Brampton
Brampton is a small unspoilt market town in North Cumbria - just by Hadrian's Wall. The people are friendly, and the pace is relaxed. Along the Wall, there are some of the best Roman remains in Europe, and Brampton itself has historic links, more recently with the famous pre-Raphaelite artists in the late 19th Century. Brampton church has beautiful pre-Raphaelite glass in its windows, and people like William Morris, Burne-Jones and other well-known artists were quite frequent visitors to our local castle, Naworth, where George Howard, the 9th Earl of Carlisle, entertained them and commissioned various works of art. Brampton is, therefore, a very pleasant place in which to have a stained glass studio. We welcome you to visit our studio. We are open from 9am to 5pm on Mondays to Fridays |
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Our Logo
Since our earliest beginnings we have used the 'Heart with Wings' as our symbol. It seems to sum up what we are trying to do. The heart, of course, suggests love and care, and represents the feeling we try to put into our products.
Take a look at the Winged Heart logo here on our Web-site and on our gift packaging, and you will see the little 'Heart with Wings'. |
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