Losing your husband after a short battle with cancer is a blow many could never recover from, but Camilla Thomas took her grief and turned it into something amazing, a retreat for the NHS staff and charity workers who deal with distress, fear and pain every day.
Today, while still being a beautiful family home, Toolerstone is a place for finding peace, discovering one’s creative side, and taking a moment away from life's stresses.
Camilla and her husband, Andy Jeal, bought the Grade II listed property in Sandiway in 2001. Tragically, Andy passed away shortly before lockdown in 2020, after a short but fierce battle with pancreatic cancer. He was able to be cared for at home, and Camilla has never forgotten the kindness and commitment of the NHS support team who helped them both through those awful months.
The house sits within the most beautiful gardens, with different zones, walled gardens, open lawns and a small lake, surrounded by beautiful mature trees and packed full herbaceous borders.
‘There was a period of time after that first lockdown when we were allowed to meet just one person, in the garden, and my friend Eleanor came round. We were talking and I said, I felt I needed to be able to use the garden to do some good; the gardens were Andy’s passion and were, and are, absolutely beautiful. We sat there coming up with ridiculous ideas, as you do, but eventually asked ourselves how Andy would want to help people.
‘We run creative workshops – from watercolour painting to photography to gardening to table-scaping to calligraphy to wellbeing – and people come for a day where they are just totally cared for. They spend the whole day here, a complete escape from their job, have lunch and lose themselves in something creative that engages their mind in a wholly different way to the way in which they normally spend their day.
‘What we offer here is a day of recognition, of release, of stepping out of yourself, switching off and just focussing on doing something a bit different. It’s mindfulness. We just give people a day, and say we’re just going to care for you today, you don’t need to think about anything. The feedback we get is overwhelmingly positive; people cry.
‘We offer the days to staff from local hospitals, such as Leighton, and to charity workers, on the basis that their employer gifts them the day, it doesn’t come out of their annual leave allowance, which makes it even more special.’
Toolerstone also offers a selection of day courses that are open to everybody, and the income from these goes a small way to funding the gifted days. And now, Camilla has introduced a collection of delightful goodies under the new Toolerstone at Home brand.
“Toolerstone has its own kind of feeling it gives to people who spend time here, whether that is a gifted day or a paid-for day,” Camilla says. “We hear this a lot and I remember it strongly from when we first found the house, the moment we both got out of the car we said oh, this is going to be it.
“The experience we want to give people, over and above that first feeling of welcome, is quite holistic. We have always used scent in our rooms, from the moment people step into the buildings from the gardens they are wrapped in scent, almost like entering a spa, so we decided to develop our own fragrances, so if people wanted to, they could take a little of the Toolerstone feeling away with them.”
Camilla and her team have created five scented candles, and all are named for their inspiration, which sits very close to home.
“They help provide a way for our guests to extend their experience of Toolerstone by providing a sensory link back to their time with us. We have 1640 - named for the year the house is supposed to date from, which blends garden and botanical scents inspired by the trees that surround the house; Camilla by the Sea – coastal inspired scents; Dear Eleanor – fun and floral scents named after Eleanor, who started Toolerstone with Camilla; Barbara Darling – named for our chef, with scents from fruits and other lovely edible things; and Brown Bear – a more masculine scent, in memory of Andy. We have also created hand soaps with the same fragrances, and wood polish and linen sprays, too, all in our signature scents.
“We have other items we sell that are very seasonal. Barbara makes gorgeous balsamic vinegars, which sell out very quickly, using produce from our fruit garden. We have our own honey, and lip balms and hand balms with Toolerstone honey too. We have jams, made by Barbara, and also we sell pieces made by two of our workshop tutors, ceramics made by our tutor Jeni from Lemon Studio Dunham Massey, and basketware and willow creations made by Rachel from Hedgerow Hare.
Alongside the candles, jams and ceramics, Camilla also offers a collection of quite beautiful textiles, each one designed by her and then woven in a mill in Lancashire.
“I created all the designs on a tabletop loom, wove the samples and then took them to a mill where they were prepared to do short runs for me. It was quite exciting, but also terrifying watching them do it, especially watching the machinery break and they all jump in with oil and replacement parts and then it all starts again. I felt so privileged, to be able to do that and for them to allow me to do it. It was delightful, scary but delightful.
“It’s lovely to be able to sell them, and to tell their story. It’s not something I am going to carry on with; I’m not weaving any more, this is the end of the range, I’m afraid. These were all made before Andy got ill. We were touring the country going to designer craft fairs, selling my textiles. When he got his diagnosis we were actually at London Design Week.
“This drew a line under my creativity, from that moment and in that way, but obviously during lockdown, coming up with the idea of what to do with Toolerstone and how to help people as Andy would have liked – by helping them with creativity, because I know how absorbing that can be – is a different form of creativity, I think.”
You won’t find any of the Toolerstone at Home collection online, a deliberate decision made by Camilla and her team.
“The people who come to Toolerstone are the only ones who can buy from our collections. It’s a way for people not only to take something of their Toolerstone experience home, but also to show their appreciation for what we do and help fund future gifted workshops here.
“Everything we sell here is very reflective of Toolerstone, and now people can take a little of their experience here home, a sensory link back to the happy, absorbing, mindful and healing day they have had with us.”
Book a creative workshop at Toolerstone, or enjoy a fascinating tour of the gardens in one of the regular open garden events, by visiting toolerstone.co.uk.
