Rena Gardiner: Portrait of an artist in Dorset

She was a one-woman publishing house, a self-contained artist, writer, researcher, designer, printer, bookbinder and distributor, running perhaps the definitive cottage industry from her thatched Tarrant Monkton home. She called it The Workshop Press and its imprint is to be found on the series of beautifully handcrafted guidebooks to historic sites and the natural landscape Read More…

To shell and back: Whatever happened to the Shell House?

A Bournemouth landmark for more than 50 years, it’s now almost 15 years since work began that culminated in the demolition of the famous Shell House at Southbourne to make way for a modern apartment block. Started in 1948 (in memory of his son Michael who died at the age of 14 from meningitis), the Read More…