A small UK brand making its own home and garden range, and selling it directly.
This matters enough to say plainly at the top. Every product on this website is designed by Thornstead, made to our specification, sold under our name and shipped by us. We are the brand of record for the entire range. We do not stock other companies' branded products, we do not describe ourselves as an authorised dealer for anyone, and you will not find a third-party logo anywhere in this shop.
That keeps things simple for you: one company designed it, one company sold it to you, and one company answers the phone if something is wrong with it.
Thornstead started from a frustration that will be familiar to anyone who has bought garden equipment online: the kneeler whose frame bends in its second season, the planter whose paint flakes after one winter, the storage box that lets water in through the lid seam. Cheap is not the problem. Designed to be replaced is the problem.
So we picked a narrow set of things people actually use every week — somewhere to kneel, something to plant into, somewhere dry to put the cushions, light along a path, a way to deal with peelings, food for the birds — and worked on each until it was genuinely worth keeping. The range is deliberately small: 10 products across 6 categories, rather than a catalogue of thousands.
Direct, from this website, to customers in the United Kingdom. Selling direct means there is no wholesaler margin and no retailer margin stacked on top of what the product actually costs to make, which is why a Thornstead piece generally costs less than an equivalent one on a high-street shelf.
Card payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your card details. Orders are packed and dispatched from the UK.
We use galvanised steel where it will get wet, closed-cell foam where it will sit on wet ground, FSC-certified timber where we use timber at all, and coated polyester with taped seams where something needs to shed rain. Where a material has a limitation — solar lights run shorter in midwinter, bamboo needs re-oiling every couple of years — we say so on the product page rather than hoping you will not notice.
Thornstead Ltd is based at 12 Mill Lane, Bristol, BS1 4ST, United Kingdom. Email contact@thornstead.store or call +44 117 456 7890, Monday to Friday, 9:00–17:00 (UK time). A real person reads and answers both.