Fearn

Why are we called Fearn?

Well, in 2006 Matt was shooting an episode of Time Team on the Isle of Man. Whilst excavating a cemetery he found a small stone slab, about 30 cm across, with very faint markings scratched in an arc around the edge.

The marks were a form of Ogham script dating to the 'Old Irish' period; the find was special because Ogham is usually expertly engraved on a standing stone, not crudely scratched on a small slab. Helen Geake, the finds specialist on site, immediately recognised the significance of the stone. She took one look at it, turned to Matt and said "You do realise that this is the most important find you are ever going to make?". So to commemorate this event, we took the Ogham script as a starting point for our new company name.

As you may have read in our bios, we are both very interested in nature, ecology as well as heritage and the synergy between these environments. This provided the next step in our search for a name - we wanted it to be linked to the natural world and reflect our cultural heritage.

As it happens, five of the twenty primary Ogham letters are associated with trees (a later version of the alphabet is shown on the right,). The third letter is 'Fearn', which means 'alder'; Old Irish explanations of the Ogham letters also use the phrases 'vanguard of warriors' and 'protection of the heart' as interpretations of 'Fearn' . And so we chose Fearn for our name.

Fearn is represented in Ogham script by three strokes off a central line. This forms the basis for our logo , along with the 'H' for Heritage. The colours are natural, woody and also reflect our interest in seventies design!