We find ourselves in such strange times of recent with many projects, concerts, festivals etc being cancelled, one of which is of course the 134th Wimbledon Championship that many of us will be missing over this last couple of weeks especially the strawberries and cream !!

Of recent years a very talented signwriter and long standing customer of Wrights of Lymm was commissioned the amazing job of hand painting the Wimbledon court rain covers. The club was founded in 1868, just 28 years after Wrights of Lymm (est 1840) and has always followed the tradition of hand painted signs and logos and Carl Tickle with his amazing skills and patience in traditional signwriting took on the job of hand painting 16 rain covers with a six metre logo on each. Each court cover took around 14 hours to complete but what an honour it must have been for Carl to see his work go out for all the world to see.

 

 

Carl has many strings to his bow….signwriting, gilding, wall murals, pinstriping, airbrushing and much more.

You can see talented work at www.cheshirebrush.co.uk

Janet Carey a long standing customer of Wrights of Lymm was awarded the job of repairing the weathervane of The Caledonian Clock Tower, built in 1855. The 46 metres (151ft) tower and weathervane are Grade II listed, so what an honour this must have been for Janet to be part of the restoration of such history. The weathervane was stripped of paint and metal repairs were carried out. Gilding was done in situ on the dragon, the lower scrolls and the letters on the vane all with 23.5ct Loose Gold Leaf.

 

Janet started her career as an apprentice signwriter and gilder with a commercial signwriting company and the moved on to working with The National Trust. Whilst working for The National Trust, Janet was awarded a William Morris Fellowship by the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings. Janet’s skills are endless and cover gilding, painting, wallpaper hanging, signwriting, traditional paints and stencilling. Visit her website to see her amazing work www.janetcarey.com

 

David Kynaston….As a teenager, when milking the cows at his home farm, would take the opportunity of using chalk on a big plastered wall to practise lettering, and now some 38 years later David is now known all over the world for his talent in signwriting, graining, gilding and the most amazing artist skills and has featured in many publications, books and television. Only a talented signwriter with so many years of experience would know exactly what brushes to use, so what better person to design their own brushes, which is exactly David has done. As a great friend and customer to Wrights of Lymm, we are pleased to be a stockist of these on David’s behalf.

A set of 6 finest kolinsky sable lettering brushes, of which 3 are chisel edge and 3 are pointed, displayed in a handmade hardwood holder made by David himself from local reclaimed timber with his hand carved monogram on each. The set also includes three alphabets which show construction of the letters. The set can be found on our website www.wrightsoflymm.co.uk in the signwriting section under Signwriting Brushes and is priced at just £69.95 which I think you will agree is worth every penny !!

In the year that Great Britain issued the world’s first adhesive stamp, The Penny Black featuring Queen Victoria, construction began on Westminster Palace replacing an earlier Medieval palace which burned down in 1834 and Charles Wilkes was first to identify Antarctica as a continent,  a gentleman named William Wright took up gold beating in the City of London forming what has now become the well known company in the trade “Wrights of Lymm”.  The company resided in London for some 30 years until it was then moved to the city of Manchester where the work was carried out in a cellar and passers by could watch the incredible art of gold beating take place through a grille in the pavement.  Eventually Wrights of Lymm relocated to the picturesque village of Lymm where we still reside today.
 

 
The Stonehouse family have been gold beaters since 1936, with Eric Stonehouse being the first family member to work for his Uncles firm, Smiths the gold beaters in Manchester, both before and after the war. He later moved up to Scotland where he worked as Works Manager for Cecil Whileys and then returned to Cheshire and formed the company C.F.Stonehouse and Sons, with his wife Alice and two sons Clive and Noel.

180 years later Clive Stonehouse and his wife Dee continue to service worldwide customers with Gold Leaf, Signwriting products and faux finish products after the opportunity arose in 1993 to purchase Wrights of Lymm and have expanded the business, supplying The Royal Households, prestigious restoration projects worldwide as well as continuing to work with many Monumental Masons, Traditional Signwriters and Artists. Over the last few years Clive and Dee have also created the brand Connoisseur Gold supplying edible gold and silver leaf to Michelin Star Restaurants, Distillers, well known Supermarkets and individuals for home use.

 

 

Other interesting events in 1840

• Uniform Penny Post mail system started throughout the United Kingdom
• The steamship Lexington burns and sinks four miles off the coast Of Long Island with the loss of 139 lives
• Dutch King Willem II was crowned
• Baltimore College of Dental Surgery was the first to be incorporated in the US
• Born this year…Rodin (the thinker), Claude Monet, Tchaikovsky (swan lake)
• The 2nd Grand National took place with Bartholomew Bretherton winning, a then smallest field of 13
• Draper takes the 1st successful photo of the Moon (daguerreotype)
• A meteorite hits Uden in the Netherlands
• The Cunard Lines 700 ton wooden paddle steamer RMS Britannia departs from Liverpool bound for Halifax, Nova Scotia on the first transatlantic crossing with a scheduled end.
• New Zealand officially becomes a British Colony
• William Henry Harrison was elected as the 9th President of the United States of America

 
We would like to thank our past and present customers over the years, it is you that has made Wrights of Lymm

This past few months have been very strange times for us all and I’m sure it will be some time before we will all be back to what we class as “normal”, however we at Wrights of Lymm have not wanted to let you any of our customer base down and have continued working through this pandemic to be here for you for all your gilding, signwriting, decorative supplies. 

It has been a pleasure seeing many new customers come on board whom can’t currently (do their day job) so are sprucing up that old picture frame that’s been shoved away for another day, or are trying their hand at pinstriping as they now finally have that time…..Our starter kits have been flying out !!! 

And as we enter into the month of June what is an even bigger pleasure is seeing our long term customers who we class mostly as friends slowly coming back to work.  Wrights of Lymm after 180 years trading are here to supply you with all your products, hopefully for another 180 years !!

 

As always take care and stay safe !!

We have a wide range of gold and imitation leaf in a variety of shades to create wonderful effects on things you can find round your home such as glass jars, shells or even pebbles from your garden. Here are just a few ideas, so give it a go…..to see the vast range of leaf we supply visit www.stonehouses.co.uk