A jewellery maker who turned his passion into a business has reached the milestone of opening a bricks-and-mortar shop.

Josh Redmayne runs JTR Jewellery from Main Street, Kirkby Lonsdale, after recently buying a vacant unit. Working mainly with sterling silver or nine carat gold, he crafts earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings inspired by the Lake District landscape in which he grew up.

He first developed a love of jewellery as a child, when his mother would frequent jewellers.

“I would have my face pressed up against the jeweller’s window just captivated by shiny things,” he said.

“As part of my GCSE design course they opened up a jewellery workshop and they had a jeweller come in from Kendal just to teach us the basics.

"When I told my design teacher I was really enjoying it and wanted to do it for A-level he said, ‘There’s the School of Jewellery in Birmingham. You can’t really get better than that.’”

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Josh studied there for two years, returning to Carlisle to work for two different jewellers. During his second job, the pandemic hit and he found himself unemployed.

“I had to move back in with my family,” he said. “I then decided to really focus on doing my own stuff.”

Having started making jewellery for friends and family in around 2011, he wondered if he could turn this into a business. He began with Christmas markets and other events and selling on Etsy but it was only when he launched his own website that it really took off.

“I think it was 2021 when I first registered as a sole trader,” said Josh. “When I got my own website I found that I was selling a little bit more and the stuff I was selling was higher end, and it’s slowly just picked up from there.”

He came across the shop by chance. “I walked past a shop which had a for rent sign on it in Kirkby,” he said. “Funnily enough I was going to look at another shop and I just rang the number and said, ‘Are you looking to sell?’ The next thing I had a viewing and I just put an offer in.”

For Josh, making jewellery is a laborious process involving modelling in wax before he ever lays his hands on metal. He’s careful about the materials he uses.

“I try to use eco silver and fair trade gold whenever I can,” he said. While he does make other styles of jewellery, he specialises in pieces inspired by nature, including rings modelled on Rydal Cave and silver leaves crafted from the real things.

He feels that Kirkby Lonsdale is the perfect setting for his shop. “I wanted to provide something that people could take away with them,” he said.