Wallis Hunter is a small jewellery manufacturing company selling to both the public and trade customers and is based in the Scottish Highlands village of Carradale, Kintyre. Trish & I started some 30 years ago (the name is a combination of our two middle names!) and we still run it together, with a handful of very handy hands, and of course Ruaridh the dog. Here we have our manufacturing workshop and a wee shop 'The Carradale Gold Foundry' which is a huge attraction over the summer months.
 

Despite sometimes being led astray, I like to make all the master patterns myself, and - in close collaboration with designer Carolyn Halcrow - I tend to be behind most of the design initiatives.
 

It is impossible not to be influenced by the wealth of Celtic and Nature's ambience that surrounds us here, and despite various forays into other design ideas the bulk of our work centres on Scottish and Celtic themes - but with a modern slant. With so many techniques now available a fresh sparkle can be given to the most familiar of Celtic patterns.
 

We have state of the art manufacturing equipment to make sure that what we produce comes up to the high standards of the modern shopper - many a visitor is surprised when they peer round the corner of our old farm steading to see our glittering casting shop. Yet despite the high tech approach, craftsmanship is paramount. The bit that makes us special is that all the jewellery is hand finished and assembled - taking painstaking hours to complete. No shortcuts, but loads of skill and dedication.

We are very proud of our past successes in being an early producer of Charles Rennie Mackintosh products, one of the founders of the style, and in days when it is hard to tell where jewellery is produced - or anything else, come to that - it still tickles us that all our jewellery is actually made here in Carradale. Come and see us working at it.
 

And yet much of the jewellery now available in Celtic and Charles Rennie Mackintosh styles - so traditionally Scottish - is no longer produced in Scotland but is made elsewhere in the world for Scottish Companies; and there is no way for you to differentiate. Even the Scottish hallmark doesn't identify country of production.