Proud to See Our Tenants Shine: Sand In Your Eye on BBC’s Race Against the Tide
At Thornber, one of the most rewarding parts of being a commercial landlord is seeing the businesses based within our properties succeed.
Sometimes that means watching a business grow its team, take on bigger projects or reach new customers. And sometimes it means switching on BBC Two and seeing one of your tenants judging a national television competition.
We were delighted to see Jamie Wardley, founder and Creative Director of Sand In Your Eye, appear as a judge on the BBC’s new series Race Against the Tide.
Based at our Topland Country Business Park in Cragg Vale, Sand In Your Eye has built an extraordinary reputation for creating large-scale sand sculptures, land art, ice sculptures and public artworks for organisations and events across the UK. Their studio at Topland has been their base for many of those creations for years.
From Cragg Vale to BBC Two
Race Against the Tide sees teams consisting of a professional sand sculptor and a newcomer race against the clock to create huge sculptures on West Sands Beach in St Andrews.
They have only six hours to complete their work before the incoming tide takes over.
Judging their creations are artist and sculptor Sadie Clayton and Sand In Your Eye’s Jamie Wardley, assessing the teams on their technical skill, creativity, storytelling and the impact of their finished sculptures.
For anyone familiar with Jamie’s work, it is easy to see why he was chosen.
Sand sculpture is where the Sand In Your Eye story began. Jamie has spent years creating ambitious pieces of temporary art, with the team going on to work with organisations including WaterAid, English Heritage, Bradford BID and the North York Moors National Park.
Seeing that knowledge and experience recognised on national television is something we are genuinely pleased to see.
Proud to have Sand In Your Eye as a Thornber tenant
There is an extra sense of pride when the business being celebrated is one you see working and creating from one of your own properties.
Sand In Your Eye operates from its studio at Topland Country Business Park in Cragg Vale, near Hebden Bridge. Over the years the team has used that base to design and create work that has travelled far beyond West Yorkshire.
Their connection with Thornber has produced some memorable moments closer to home too. In 2020, Jamie created a huge 100-metre Thank You NHS artwork in a field at the site of the studio, with Thornber giving permission for the land to be used for the piece.
It is exactly the sort of story we love to see.
As a commercial landlord, our buildings provide the place where businesses work. It is the people inside those buildings who bring the ideas, talent and determination that turn them into something far more.
Jamie and the Sand In Your Eye team have done exactly that.
Celebrating our tenants’ success
We believe there is real value in celebrating the achievements of the businesses that call Thornber properties home.
Their successes matter to us.
When a tenant wins a new contract, expands their business, creates something remarkable or receives national recognition, we are pleased for them. We want the companies based across our commercial properties to do well and we take pride in watching their stories develop.
Seeing Jamie representing Sand In Your Eye on a BBC programme dedicated to the art form that began his career is a brilliant example.
From a sculpture studio in Cragg Vale to judging some of the country’s most talented sand sculptors on Race Against the Tide, it is fantastic recognition for Jamie and the whole Sand In Your Eye team.
Congratulations from everyone at Thornber. We’re proud to have you as our tenant, and even happier to see your talent and hard work receiving the attention it deserves.