Welcome
The Lettering Arts Trust is a charity dedicated to the fostering of an age-old art.
For centuries, human beings have felt the need to mark-make. This urge continues today and we are thrilled to play a part in its future. Mark-making is all around us - in new public works commemorating great lives or momentous events, through to statements spray-painted as graffiti.
We would love to welcome you to enjoy the many forms of the art and perhaps participate in a workshop. Lettering is alive and we celebrate its many forms. We hope you too will enjoy it, either by visiting one of our exhibitions, taking home a work from our gallery shop, or even working with one of our artists on a special piece. As a charity we rely on outside support and value your interest and involvement in whatever form it takes.
Our story
The Lettering Arts Trust was founded in 1988 by Harriet Frazer MBE as ‘Memorials by Artists’
This was in response to Harriet’s need to find someone to make a unique memorial for her step-daughter Sophie, who died suddenly at the age of 26. It was hard at that time to find a letter carving artist, but harder still discovering that church regulations prevented her from inscribing her daughter’s poetry onto a memorial.
When Harriet finally did find artist Simon Verity, she determined that other people wanting to mark the life of a loved one should not have to go through what she had to before finding Simon. So she formed Memorials by Artists – to help others, and help foster the art and craft of creating unique well-designed memorials.
Today’s world is increasingly pixelated… digital… ephemeral. What better way to make a lasting mark than by having a name, a phrase, a date, hand carved forever in stone by a letter-carving artist?
Our vision
We believe in the importance of creating beautiful hand-carved letters, and passing on the skills to create them. Hand-carved letters are a permanent mark in stone that show the love a person has for another; keep alive the memory of a special event; or mark a beloved place for years to come.
The highly honed skill of letter carving that had been passed down from the Romans, nearly faded in the mechanised society of the early 20th century. This was when a new generation of lettering artists such as Eric Gill made it their mission to revive it. This is our mission, too.
Today, we are the UK’s leading voice for promoting the lettering arts. We are a nonprofit organisation that fund apprenticeships, hold workshops, host talks, sell fine works, and curate exhibitions. Our aim is to inspire people about lettering, while equipping letter-carving artists with the skills they need for now and the future.
Our Mission
We also want to make creating a memorial by an artist as rewarding, inspiring and as meaningful as possible. For over 30 years, this has been one of our most important goals. Thanks to our register containing 75 of the UK’s finest letter-carving artists, with whom we have strong relationships, we are confident people who come to us gain a memorial by artists that at once inspires, consoles and delights.
Since 1988, Memorials by Artists has evolved. Today, it is the Lettering Arts Trust which not only helps people commission memorials, but also holds exhibitions and runs apprenticeship schemes for lettering artists. Its constant has been to keep the art of letter carving alive, to make it accessible to people, and to give advice and information through the process of commissioning a piece, be it a memorial or a garden sundial.
We want the centuries’ old art of letter carving to thrive in today’s digital world.
Get involved
If you’d like to volunteer your time or skills to help the Lettering Arts Trust, we’d love to hear from you.
Meet the trustees
There are many talented people involved in the Lettering Arts Trust.
We highlight here the people who are instrumental in its continuing success on a day-to-day basis.
Ron Clarke
Treasurer
Ron has been Finance and Operations Director at London’s artsdepot since 2008, and was Finance Director of the Esmee Fairbairn Foundation between 2000 and 2008. He has over 20 years’ experience of financial management in both private and not for profit sectors.
Lisi Ashbridge
Trustee
Lisi has an international background with a strong multi-disciplinary interests. Having grown up on the continent she came to study at UCL, followed by a PhD in Neuropsychology at St Andrews, a postdoc research fellowship at Oxford and lectureship in London. Her field of interest was how the brain recognises shapes.
Having taken time out to raise her two daughters she returned to her love of art and making. She was mentored by the international renowned Letter Carver Caroline Webb and over the years has also had short bursts of training with Tom Perkins, Andrew Whittle and John Neilson. In 2015 she set up her own studio and workshop in the beautiful Pewsey Vale, Wiltshire. She received a QEST scholarship and is an elected member of the Master Carvers Association and the LAT Memorials by Artists register.
Teucer Wilson
Trustee
With over 30 years of experience, Teucer’s journey began with training as a stonemason and architectural carver at Weymouth College in Dorset. This was followed by a five-year lettering apprenticeship at the renowned Richard Kindersley Studio in London. In 2000, he established his own workshop in Norfolk and was awarded a Crafts Council Development Award in 2001.
While he primarily works with stone, his portfolio also includes projects in wood, glass, laser-cut stainless steel, and cast iron. Teucer is equally passionate about digital design, having developed several of his own TrueType fonts. His creations, which reflect a deep interest in fine lettering and three-dimensional forms, can be found in private collections and public spaces worldwide.
Teucer remains dedicated to perfecting his craft, creating exceptional works, and is passionate about passing on his skills to the next generation, having already mentored two apprentices to date.
Karoline Newman
Trustee
Karoline joined the Lettering Arts Trust's board of Trustees in 2016, stepping down to become LAT's Director from 2019 to 2022 to guide its reorganisation. She has since returned to the board.
Karoline founded the PR consultancy Articulate Communication in 1992 to represent clients in the design, architecture and creative cultural sectors. These included the London Design Festival; the Crafts Council; New Designers; and the International Architecture Biennale in Venice. Brands included Dyson; Herman Miller; Vitra. Art and artists included Art First; Paul Cummins (creator of the Tower of London poppies installation 2014); ceramicist Annie Cooper. Charitable enterprises included Fine Cell Work.
As a writer she co-authored ‘Lingerie – A Century of Style’ leading to a C4 television series. She also contributes articles to various magazines.
She has run an exclusive London catering company and a touring theatre production company. She works as an actress, voiceover artist and stand-up comedian.
Nick Heath
chair
Nick’s main career has been as a chartered surveyor, with a sideline as a wine merchant. Despite a degree from Oxford, he lived and worked in Cambridge for many years playing key roles in various local organisations. As trustee of the Cambridge Union (the University debating society) he has been closely involved with their substantial building and refurbishment project, successfully completed in 2023. He was previously chairman of Friends of All Saints, the special and once - neglected Victorian painted church in Jesus Lane, saved from demolition thanks to the Churches Conservation Trust. Nick joined Cambridge Summer Music as trustee in 2022. They arrange a popular festival of mainly classical music, preferably in beautiful, historic or quirky locations. He is also a council member at the Academy of Ancient Music, the world famous early music orchestra founded in Cambridge by Christopher Hogwood. A keen tennis player, he sits is on the committee that runs Cambridge University Real Tennis Club.
Rev'd Robyn Golden-Hann
trustee
Robyn trained as a stonemason at Weymouth College in the early 1990’s where she was fortunate enough to receive a grounding in the basic principles of lettering design and carving with her letter-cutting tutor, Andrew Whittle. Initially pursuing a career in architectural masonry, she went on to work for a family firm of traditional stone masons in Cambridge and eventually spent a year working on various masonry restoration projects in Czechia. Upon return to the UK, she took up a place at David Kindersley’s studio in Cambridge. From there Robyn moved to Salisbury in 1996 to work on the restoration of the cathedral; culminating in the establishment of her own studio in 2006.
In 2022 Robyn closed her business, set her chisels aside, and was ordained as a minister in the Church of England. She currently serves the Church as a priest in Poole, Dorset.