Travel Journal - Quarry Bank Mill
Travel days are always a wonderful part of my creative process, they give me time away from the screens, time out in nature and time to be with my favourite things - flowers and wildlife! I just have my camera in hand and my husband alongside me as we love to explore National Trust gardens, estates and castles together. Thankfully he doesn’t mind me stopping every ten seconds to take another photograph of a flower at a slightly different angle to the last photograph.
If you follow me over on Instagram, you will likely know that my favourite local place to visit is Quarry Bank Mill, a stunning National Trust spot with an old and still working cotton mill and beautiful rose, peony and iris gardens in the top garden, with my favourite greenhouse (which is really making me want to manifest a greenhouse in the future to grow my own inspiration!)
There is nothing quite like a National Trust garden in the British countryside
Wandering through the beds of blooms is such a wonderful way for me to find inspiration and to take a moment to relax. I always end up feeling refreshed and motivated after visiting a place like this. I end up with so many ideas, pattern thoughts and name ideas for collections, as well as colour palettes. More on those in future journals.
You can easily spend the day here, with both the gardens and the working cotton mill that spans over several floors. As well as the surrounding woodland walk through the British countryside and Styal village to wander through at the top end of Quarry Bank. I currently have a yearly membership with the National Trust to visit their beautiful places and intend to donate a portion of my sales to them too to continue caring for the countryside and its wildlife. As these are the places that inspire me the most it felt fitting to give back to them in some small way so that future creatives can continue to be inspired by these places too.
Photographing these places is one of life’s little joys and I love that it is part of my creative process and being able to use my own photographs for my illustrations and patterns means I can bring a story to life of my wanders in the British gardens and remember the wonderful days out exploring them.