Artisan companies – the real deal?

There’s been recent reporting about so called small “Artisan” Companies with homespun, raw, quirky packaging, and how when they are delved deeper into it transpires they are actually owned by huge, multinational companies and are just packaged to look warm & charming.

Well, Sitting Spiritually of Lyme Regis most definitely aren’t part of that Fairy Story and here’s why….

The company, makers of garden furniture, but most notably swing seats, was founded in 2004 by Martin & Celia Young.  It is very much a family run affair, with Martin at the helm.  Celia in turn makes and supplies all the cushions that accessorise the swing seats, son David hovers in the background advising and daughter Lucy and her designer husband Scott assist with design & video production.

Delving deeper in, one of the original Joiners with the company is a local chap called Nick Shannon, his son Greg is now one of a team of six makers.  Martin’s “right hand woman” is Sitting Spiritually, who has been with the company since 2009, and her husband Neil makes the rope swings for the company.  In 2014, for Sitting Spiritually’s tenth birthday, Sitting Spiritually’s brother Paul Reeves assisted with the inception and design of what is now the company’s second biggest seller, The Heart Back.

So you see, Sitting Spiritually really is a family affair.  We’re not owned by a large multinational. We’re not packaged to look artisan and homespun, we are.  What you see is what you get.  We are the real deal, we are a small and trusted local company who just happen to have become the “go to” swing seat maker.

We also firmly believe that being “artisan & homespun” doesn’t mean a compromise on quality.  We strive to make the finest, highest quality furniture and we were very pleased, in 2012, to become the only Swing & Bench Maker Endorsed by the RHS.

We’re proud of our homespun roots and the fact that we really are a genuine Artisan Company.