shop & gallery
Hello, I’m Lucy Quantrill-Simon; my shop and design studio are both housed in this ornate old bank building on Castle Cary’s high street, a minute down the road from the beautiful Newt in Somerset estate. Please scroll below to see shop products and purchase online, or click on the studio image, on the right, or the tab above, to go to my interior design section.
Our art gallery is also housed here in the building: www.davidsimoncontemporary.com
current Best Sellers
The purest and truest rose geranium scented candle we’ve ever found (yes, we have tried them all, and even made some ourselves a while ago in our first Bath shop). We can’t add much more to the fact that if you love the aroma of nature’s scented geranium leaf (bright green pelargonium) then this is it bottled in a candle, and you won’t find better.
The candles are naturally scented by infusing plant wax with pure essential oils. Top notes of zingy, leafy geranium permeate a lemony-citrus base. Natural wax results in a clean burn with no soot build up.
The candles are stylishly housed in a hand-blown glass jar and contained within a colourful letter-pressed GF Smith paper box. 220g / up to 50 hrs burn.
Large size, 30cm tumbler.
The formula and packaging are cruelty free, vegan-friendly and sustainable.
Made in Sussex
Please refer to our instructions on how to care for your candle.
A really lovely gift set from Moulin Roty's pretty botanical craft range, full of the best quality materials, to really encourage budding artists. We recommend this for 7+ years.
A beautifully decorated, sturdy cardboard suitcase which contains all that’s needed to create watercolour paintings:
Watercolour paper pad
3 x paint brushes
Pot for water
Watercolour paint pallet
10 x watercolour pencils
The box measures 27 x 23 x 11 cm
Inspired by the Bauhaus movement, this blue colourway of geometric shapes looks particularly good worn with denim or white.
Made from 100% silk.
50cm x 180cm
about Lucy’s Interior Design
My design approach is to take a client’s Art Collection as the focus, together with a home’s architecture, to truly reflect your individuality through your artistic interests and personality through owned objects, within a cohesive home environment. My background over the past 20 years combines the roles of: retail buyer and stylist for my shops, florist, and furthermore helping my husband David to curate and handle our monthly selling exhibitions at our gallery, David Simon Contemporary, since 2013, gives me a varied and broad experience across the Arts and Design.
I work with and supply Edward Bulmer’s Natural Paint, since 2013, and now also sell Farrow and Ball paint. I have chosen all my favourite craftspeople and designers to work with, such as Liberty London Fabrics, Heal’s, Tom Raffield, Alfred Newall furniture, and Birdie Fortescue. I employ my established coterie of carefully selected craftsmen, designers and makers from around the country, to fit my kitchen and bathroom designs.
I offer whole project management, or just simple colour consultation as a starting point.
I have a BA (Hons) degree in the Arts, and a Certificate in Interior Design, through the prestigious KLC Design School, London.
Please email me re: design here or visit the dedicated page on the top menu bar.
Lucy’s Fresh floristry
For ten years, I sold fresh, local flowers in my shops, and for 3 years I made all the guest bouquets for The Newt in Somerset Hotel just up the road from my Castle Cary shop. I have always chosen to only deal with top quality, local British growers across the South of England, from Cornwall/ Isles of Scilly, to Norfolk, and special favourite Rosebie Morton at The Real Flower Company.
The pattern and costs of regular floristry has changed since the Lockdown time, when I also had my family. To continue supplying and creating the best I can within my retail setting, I now only offer my floristry at certain times of year, and for select events and workshops, rather than weekly. Mothers’ Day, end of June -July, and Christmas are peak periods when the orders come flooding in for collection and posting. You can always call the shop (01963 359102) to check upcoming seasons or place an order. We always offer a complimentary presentation wrapping with water and hand-written notecard. The colour palette of flowers on offer is my choice of best available varieties that day/week.
Old Stuckey’s Bank, 37 High St. Castle Cary, SOMERSET
BA7 7AW 01963 359102
Article is the creative output of Sussex-born Lucy Quantrill-Simon, who is the buyer, merchandiser, florist and stylist behind her shop, which has a high street premises (Est. 2013) and an online store here. Lucy is a qualified Interior Designer and runs her practice from the office suite behind her shop.
You can find Lucy’s careful selection of favourite and useful products to buy, from stationery and scarves to skincare and scents, and the sweetest gifts for small children, amidst beautiful original artworks and ceramics from the art gallery she shares with husband David next door.
“I champion stylish & high quality designer-makers you don’t find in most places, so you will find one-off objects and articles of great beauty here. If you’re searching for a particular thing, ask us and we can help source it for you. I first opened ‘article’ in Bath in 2013, which is my second retail business (first shop in Edinburgh, 2007). We relocated the business premises to Castle Cary in 2019.
What we do
Established in Bath over thirteen years ago, and now located in a restored bank in Castle Cary, Article is the creative output of musician and retailer Lucy Quantrill-Simon.
“Possessed of my own clear aesthetic principles, an eye for design and a taste for quality, I hope you enjoy the eclectic offering my shop brings, of good things for stylish living. I check everything I buy and make for quality, value, sustainability and beauty.
My style, through the shop’s curated products, is inspired by nature in terms of materials and often subject, mixed with an artistic and intelligent design aesthetic, inspired by certain movements in art, and also by the nostalgia within our childhood hearts.
Someone at Time Out magazine once described my first shop (in Edinburgh, 2007), as “A thinking lady’s boutique” which I rather hope still fits…”
about our Dried Flowers
Originally from Sussex, and a trained classical musician, Article founder Lucy Quantrill-Simon used to spend every Saturday as a teenager exploring all the independent shops in her home town of Brighton, being endlessly inspired by the retail landscape in the buzzing seaside town. She opened her first shop at the age of 24, in Edinburgh, and has kept shop since, subsequently moving to Bath and then rural Somerset and moving her shop along with the journeying. The careful selection of products chosen for sale in the shop are sourced by Lucy’s eye for design and keen sense of the importance of value, quality, exclusivity and beauty in combination, mostly led by a particular colour palette reminiscent of the Bloomsbury art movement and illustrative and surface pattern. Since marrying Art Gallerist David in Bath some time ago, the pair operate their two businesses, the art gallery and shop, alongside eachother, now housed in a restored Georgian bank on Castle Cary’s High Street. Their little daughter sometimes joins them and loves to join in and talk to people. Lucy is in the shop most days and oversees every aspect of her business.
There is now an additional interior design studio housed within the premises, where Lucy offers a full design and project management service, following her more recent KLC London qualification.