Forepoint Design

I was invited into Barrow Rising – a ten-year push to reimagine the town’s future. A chance to help shape a vision for how this remarkable place might grow into somewhere people feel proud to call home. A place worth staying in, worth returning to.

They asked me to spend a week there. Meeting and photographing the people whose stories are stitched into the town. Makers. Volunteers. Teachers. Coaches. Footballers. All rooted in Barrow, all shaping it in their own ways.

And then there’s the place itself. This curious edge of England, held between the Lake District’s fells and the open sweep of the Irish Sea. Weather rolling in. Light shifting by the minute. A town shaped by its position – rugged, beautiful, a little wild around the edges. You feel it the moment you arrive.

It turned into a stretch of days I won’t forget. Barrow has its own rhythm – people a little quirky, in the best way, open-hearted and quick to fold you in. And working alongside the team at Forepoint only added to it. A warm, easy collaboration. The kind that makes the work feel less like a job and more like a gift.

Seeing where all this will carry Barrow in the years ahead feels genuinely exciting. A sense of momentum. A town leaning toward its future.

I was just lucky to have a small part to play in a bigger story.