The Award Winning Hembury Chair

Solidwool was started because of a passion to take something seen as waste, a by-product of sheep farming, and turn it into beautiful design without compromising our planet. 

We are over the moon to announce that our Hembury chair won ‘Best Sustainable Furniture’ at this years Living Etc Design Awards. This award underlines the importance that sustainable design has in our present and future, and the Hembury chair shows us that eco-conscious furniture does not have to be complicated. 

‘I am so impressed by the innovation of taking something unwanted and giving it another life and form.’ - Pandora Sykes.

A timeless, elegant and innovative product that showcases the beauty of wool, with Solidwool there is no confusion with what you see. Wiry, coarse Herdwick wool is combined with bio-resin to create a sustainable, kinder alternative to injection moulded plastics. Furniture with soul that is good for our planet.

A New Hembury

This year we were thrilled to see the new Hembury chair launched.

It had taken time. Years in fact. A lot of discussions, months of experiments, getting it wrong, then getting it just right.

And now, the Hembury is back. A chair with new design features and developments that make it better than ever.

Solidwool was born from the idea to take the unwanted and make it beautiful. The unique composite material and manufacturing process has been developed and fine tuned, to create a natural material with a story that connects people to the land it has come from.

The new Hembury now contains twice as much wool as the previous chair. That means one whole fleece from a Herdwick sheep makes its way into our chair - a fleece that unfortunately has little or no value in the current market. But when combined with our bio-resin this wool gives the Hembury chair beauty and soul, and gives purpose back to something that has been undervalued for so long.

We are also pleased to see a big improvement in our bio-resin. The bio content now makes up 50% of this resin and, even better, every chair contains half the amount than previously used. This means less resin and more bio content - making a chair that is stronger, lighter and better for our planet. But that doesn’t mean we’re going to sit still, we want to work towards using a 100% plant based resin to make Solidwool the most sustainable we can.

Solidwool is made in Devon by our knowledgeable and skilled team and we are proud to say the Hembury chair has an entirely British production. Made with sustainably sourced UK Ash, recycled steel frames made in Peterborough, and of course British Wool from the hardy Herdwick. We have also refined the design, with every chair shaped by hand giving a more streamlined and contemporary finish.

Simple lines, timeless appeal and hand-finished qualities make the Hembury a chair to be celebrated. Each one unique, it truly is a chair to be cherished, to make memories and to hand down through generations.

Home of the Herdwick

The Central and Western Lake District - big skies, bigger peaks and home to the Herdwick. A wild landscape where for centuries the Herdwick has roamed; tough and resilient with a smiling face.

Traditionally used in the carpet industry, this breed has fallen out of favour, with their fleeces now seen as a by-product of sheep farming. So some might question why we would use Herdwick in Solidwool, and what makes it so special?

A lot of this is down to the wool and where the Herdwick comes from. Currently, it is believed that around 95% of the breed are located within 14 miles of Coniston in the Central Lake District. So if you want to know the provenance of the wool in your Solidwool chair, we couldn’t explain it better than that. It is a wool that tells us everything we need to know about the breed and where it comes from: robust, resilient and wild. And when used in Solidwool, this wool is beautiful.

The Lakes have been shaped by the Herdwick. With high fells and harsh winters, the Herdwick naturally ‘heft’ themselves to the land, their grazing defining the landscape in this famous corner of the UK. Their wool boasts unique and durable qualities, with their fleece helping them endure the cold winters and wet weather in the fells. Lambs are born black, turning brown after a year with their fleece changing to grey as they age.

And it is this dark, coarse wool with its lighter guard hairs that work so well in Solidwool. Other wools disappeared in our bio-resin, but the wiry grey fibres of Herdwick come to life, creating a composite where these light guard hairs stood proud - announcing that Herdwick is at the heart of Solidwool.

With Herdwick we can tell a story, and create design with soul and a sensitivity to the land it comes from. A story that connects Solidwool to this incredible, ancient breed and their environment.

To take the unwanted, and make it into something beautiful.

An Announcement

We are excited to be able to share with you that renowned flatweave company Roger Oates Design are the new custodians of Solidwool. Although the ownership of the company has changed, some things remain constant; a love for design, a passion for wool and its value and our commitment to creating beautiful materials without compromising our planet.

With some help from Justin, we are working hard behind the scenes to further develop the Solidwool material and are well underway designing a new series of Hembury chairs which is proving an exciting and experimental journey.

With just a few last hurdles to overcome, we look forward to sharing the Hembury chair with you once again in the coming months. We want to make it perfect…or rather perfectly individual, which we think is even better!

Thank you all for your continued interest, support and patience, it really is a driving force. We are as enthusiastic as you are to relaunch. So, here’s to the next chapter, we’ll be sure to keep you updated.

Team Solidwool

An Update

From the Founders

Following our last post back in January things have (understandably) been a little quiet, but we have some good news to share and an exciting announcement for Solidwool. Firstly, thanks to everyone who took the time to write to us and also to the many of you who expressed an interest in taking Solidwool on.  

For us closing the doors to the factory was a personal decision and never about selling out. It was about admitting that the waves of life can change how you want to live your life. Tough as it was, we knew that running Solidwool was not for us anymore.   

Thanks to all of the interest, what quickly became apparent was despite this, we would have an opportunity to find someone with the resources to continue what we had started and move Solidwool on to realise its potential. 

From initial conversations, one interested company stood out from the beginning and we are pleased to share that we believe we have found a new home for Solidwool that is a great fit. Where there is a team who value craft, materiality, design and soul as much as we did. 

So this is us handing over to them. They will make the perfect home for Solidwool and the material, products and brand are a great fit with their product, processes and company ethos.  Development and production will remain fairly local to us and we are so excited to see where they take things. So much so, that we are sticking around for the time being with Justin overseeing work on a new chair and material development. 

So here’s to hoping that you stick around too and you give them every bit of support and love that you showed to us. Once the dust has settled the new Solidwool team will be able to share even more with you. Exciting times are ahead.

Hannah & Justin.