We were invited by the Earl of Leicester to provide a windbreak for consideration to be used with their newly refurbished beach cafe. The beach cafe is part of the Holkham Estate and sits next to the beach at Wells Next the Sea.

Naturally, we were delighted and sent off a windbreak.  He loved it and the estate management loved it, so we made a whole bunch of them to be used as an awning around their cafe. We are awaiting the marketing photos, but just couldn’t wait any more and very kind man called Phil from BigSkyCoast in Wells Next the Sea kindly took these photos for us. He runs a great site, so please take a minute to check out his information.

Anyway, it was quite a challenge making all these windbreaks to (a) fit and (b) fit in with their designs. We worked with the estate and a design team and the end result is wonderful (but we are bias). You really have to see it to appreciate them in full The good news is there are plans to make more and the concrete you see in front of the windbreaks is being replaced with landscaped gardens in time. The plans look spectacular and we are thrilled to have our windbreaks in such a position.

Everyone at Holkham Hall was lovely and the estate manager and beach cafe manager were a delight to work with.

Marketing photos will follow soon and we will post these around the site. More photos from Phil can be found on our facebook page.

Holkham Hall itself is also wonderful and the grounds are beautiful.   We were lucky to go when it is closed to the public and I wandered amongst the deer in the most spectacular scenery before heading to the beach.   If you would like to find out more about the history of Holkham, have a look through their website.

It was a lovely day to start chopping up sails.   We pulled out the old machine and begun experimenting with the poorest sails.   But what to make?  We decided to start small and make a dinghy cover    I actually needed one and it would also act as a good advertisement down at the dinghy park.   Just a one off as an experimental product because as we began we realised the amount of sail cloth needed to build what is a very large sail cloth sleeping bag.

I am loving this and it makes a change from trying to stow a huge sail whilst being lashed by sea and having cold sea water trickle down your neck.

Lessons already learnt?!   We need a new machine (we sort of guessed this anyway), we need a nice high table, we are getting to love sails (weirdos), and we believe we have a knack for this    Pictures to follow as now complete and on the dinghy, just waiting for another sunny day.