There are moments, in the weeks and months after a baby arrives, when you fold the things they've outgrown and put them away.
You fold them carefully, more carefully than anything else you own, and you place them somewhere safe. And years later, when you find them again, something happens that no photograph can quite replicate. You're back. Completely and suddenly - that room, that light, that feeling — the particular weight of that small person in your arms.
That's what these pieces are. Timestamps. The physical form of moments you'll want to return to.
About us
Benmore was created in 2019 by Leighton and Tamsin Henshaw. Their first sample arrived in the post on the morning their daughter Rosa was born, as they were on their way to the hospital. They designed the beautiful pieces, with their daughters in mind, and built it for seven years before passing it to our family.
When our son William was born, it was a difficult and frightening time. In the chaos of the hospital I noticed a small basket on the counter with hand knitted hats in it. A blue one caught my eye, briefly. Hours later, when William arrived, they placed that hat on his head. We got thirty unexpected minutes with him before he was taken to the NICU and I was given a popsicle instead.
He was tiny and perfect and wearing a hat that a stranger had made for a baby they would never meet.
When we stand in the stock room and look at the pieces waiting on the shelves, we think about the babies who might wear them, making their way to the people who will love them — the ones arriving smoothly, and the ones arriving the long way round.
Not everyone has someone who can knit for them. Benmore exists for them. It's not your grandmother's knitting. But it's as close as we know how to get.
