Creative Egremont Blog

Gurning webcast

This is us (the two Karens) looking rather sweaty at our live webcast of the 2006 Crab Fair Gurning in Egremont Market Hall…

...and here’s Ralph Merrett (Crab Fair Committee & CE Steering Group), a picture paints a thousand words....!

Posted by: karen
Saturday, September 16, 2006

Portrait of Creative Egremont

On leaving the army and founding his garden supply business in 1968, Keith Singleton could not have foretold that nearly four decades on he’d be building a restaurant on site. But by virtue of a Thai daughter-in-law and a relentless entrepreneurial sensibility, Keith has just laid the first rows of bricks for this new enterprise. He also has the benefit of the experience of running the popular Egremont restaurant “Good Companions” some years back, a place with a reputation that even I, an off-comer, had heard of.

An energetic renaissance man, I was tempted out to have a look at Keith‘s unconventional business empire after hearing him speak at a business networking event about his research into sustainable wood pellet heating for his greenhouses. Here was a local businessman with a truly creative attitude to his work, I thought!

On arriving at Keith‘s premises in rural Nethertown (2 miles SW of Egremont) you‘re struck by the sheer scale of the operation – vast piles of pallets waiting to be recycled into wood briquettes, heaps of aggregates – but best of all rows and rows of shrubs and plants in the peak of health. This last area is the most popular with visitors naturally, whilst Keith‘s online shop and mail order operation mainly deal with daily pallet deliveries of all over the UK.
Keith, who works with his wife, son and a handful of full-time members of staff, prides himself on his attentiveness to his customer’s needs. Speedy delivery and the quality of his products are not the only things they return to Keith for, though from the office photos, it‘s clear that most prize–winning leeks in the country are grown in his compost mix. He has a keen sense of humour and makes an effort to engage with his clientele personally. He’s also a bit of a joker: When asked by a customer what the best time to plant a certain shrub was, Keith was heard to reply “About 3am on a Friday morning“.

Keith has innovative plans to enhance the experience of a visit to his garden centre in the near future beyond the restaurant, and has even ‘road-tested‘ his idea with a select group of loyal customers: He intends to invite visitors on a ‘behind the scenes’ tour of the operation, showing them propagation and nursery areas and the meticulous running procedures behind his business.
No techno-phobe, Keith has embraced eBay as a marketplace instead of viewing it as a threat. At his PC he proudly shows us his customer reviews and star rating - he clearly treats the online customers as well as any that walk through the nursery door.

Of particular interest to us is his inventive streak – currently being dedicated to innovating ways of recycling broken pallets into briquettes or pellets suitable for using as fuel or cat litter. In fact, his restaurant will be heated from these home–made briquettes, and his pizzas baked in a briquette-fuelled stove!
We walk round his outbuildings, a kind of sprawling outdoor laboratory, encountering customised machines dedicated to refining processes like bagging compost, and Keith points out the warehouse floors made onsite of recycled stone. Around every corner there’s a fascinating enterprise unfolding and Keith is rightfully proud of his company‘s ability to balance ambition with a kind of earthy self-sufficiency – this is clearly a man who still gets his hands dirty.

The recipient of a bronze award for his environmental policy, Keith’s environmental statement is a lengthy and committed document which reads as good common sense – lessening the impact of road haulage by recycling packaging materials, for example. Rather than the rhetoric of an idealistic dreamer, this is environmental consciousness borne out of the many factors that have influenced Keith’s company –not least its geographical isolation away from mainstream supply chains.
Many of Keith’s ideas are supported by the existing infrastructure of his business, meaning that – for example – he has lorries ready to pick up discarded waste pallets, and the space to store them easily.  Consequently, he‘s lucky enough to be able to experiment with the kind of “green ideas” that are often too expensive to get off the ground for a smaller operation.

For a man who works a 100 hour week, the fact that he has any time at all to show us around is all the more impressive. And what does he do to relax? Well, one thing‘s for sure, it’s not gardening. Despite the tens of thousands of ready plants in his polytunnels, Keith has no garden of his own!

Visit Keith’s website
Keith Singleton
Seaview Nurseries
Nethertown, Egremont, Cumbria CA22 2UQ

Tel 01946 820412
Fax 01946 824091

Download this article as an illustrated PDF file
(Adobe Acrobat required for viewing)

View more pictures of Keith in the press gallery

Text & photo by Karen Guthrie

Posted by: karen
Friday, September 15, 2006

New cinema at Haile Village Hall - Sept. 13th

Barrow-based Shoreline Films are heading up a tour of Cumbrian venues with a selection of
just the kind of cool films you never get to see in the region’s mainstream cinemas.
They’re bringing the acclaimed movie Me and You and Everyone We Know (Cert 15, 91 min–Dir. Miranda July) to Haile Village Hall just outside Egremont,
on Sept 13th at 7pm.

“Christine is a lonely artist and ‘Eldercab‘; driver who uses her fantastical artistic
visions to draw objects of desire closer to her. When newly single shoe salesman
Richard Swersey falls under her spell, we enter a world where the mundane is
transcendent and everyday people become radiant characters who speak their
innermost thoughts and experience truthful human moments that at times approach the surreal”

More info can be had from Shoreline Films

Posted by: karen
Wednesday, September 06, 2006

Leading musician plays in Egremont - Sept. 29th

Just in from Keith Bradshaw of SASRA - a longstanding local group organising cultural events - is news that leading cello soloist Raphael Wallfisch is heading up a concert by the Northern Chamber Orchestra (pictured) in Egremont Market Hall on Friday Sept 29th.

Part of the Orchestras Live Concert Season which is co-organised by Cumbrian societies in Cockermouth, Penrith and Keswick, the event will feature music by Haydn, Tchaikovsky and Lennox Berkeley. Commendably, accompanied schoolchildren are admitted FREE to all SASRA Music & Arts events - so there’s no excuse to be in front of the telly with the kids that night!
Tickets cost 12 pounds for adults, 1 pound for students and the concert kicks off at 8.00pm.
For more details on this another SASRA events call 01946 692178 or download their programme here. (Word document, 84kb) or see their web-page here.

SASRA Music & Arts acknowledges the help provided by North West Classical Music Tours, a Making Music Initiative funded by Arts Council England, The Making Music Concert Promoters’ Network Scheme and the Northern Rock Foundation.

Posted by: karen
Tuesday, September 05, 2006