Last updated at 09:57, Tuesday, 22 January 2013

One of Cumbria’s most innovative and successful craft businesses is on the market for £250,000 – but the owners are in no rush to sell.

Mara Eagle and Drew Landsborough

Drew Landsborough and his wife Mara Eagle set up Winged Heart in 1995.

The business in the Old Brewery at Craw Hall, Brampton, makes stained-glass giftware.

Its products can be found in the gift shops of Canterbury and St Paul’s Cathedrals, Westminster Abbey, York Minster, the British Museum, Houses of Parliament and even Notre Dame in Paris.

The owners are in their sixties and looking to retire. With no children to take over, selling was the only option.

Ms Eagle said: “We want to retire – Drew is 70 this year – and we want the business to continue to safeguard the jobs of our staff. We are a family firm and our staff are important to us.

“The sale might not happen this year, it might not happen next year, but everybody has to retire at some point.”

Winged Heart has five full-time and three part-time employees.

Turnover in the last financial year was £500,000 and sales in the current year are up 15 per cent.

There is a growing export trade, particularly to Europe and the U.S.

Mr Landsborough said: “We have just had the best year we’ve ever had, which in a recession isn’t bad.

“We are keen to find the right people [to sell to]. We are not in any hurry.

“It’s a family business and the ideal buyers would be a family, maybe with young children, who are raring to go.”

Although Winged Heart specialises in reproductions of cathedrals’ stained-glass windows, sold through cathedral gift shops, it has many other lines.

These include glass roundels to hang in a window, stained-glass paper weights, photo frames, greeting cards, and mirrors inspired by the famous Glaswegian designer and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh.

First published at 09:56, Tuesday, 22 January 2013
Published by http://www.cumberlandnews.co.uk