Before the garden studio, before the children, before the warehouse and the years of watching the business evolve, there was a little studio in South East London. Getting into Cockpit Arts in 2013 was a huge step for me! It was where I always wanted to be: a creative hub full of designers I looked up to and wanted to emulate; the issue was, when I started, I couldn’t afford it, but I took the leap and never looked back
Cockpit Arts was where Lorna Syson grew, and the business became something really special. Looking back now, I realise just how important those years were.
What was Cockpit Arts?
Cockpit Arts is a business incubator for craftspeople, with studios alongside business support, coaching, workshops and opportunities to meet customers and sell your work. It brings together a whole community of independent makers, designers and craftspeople under one roof.
For a small business, especially one starting out, that community is incredibly valuable.
Running your own business can be quite lonely. You can spend days working away on your own, trying to solve problems that feel enormous when you’re the only person dealing with them.
At Cockpit, you could walk down the corridor and find someone who understood.
Someone was always making something, launching something, trying something new or figuring out how to solve a problem.
And there was a real sense that we were all in it together.
Seven years of growing the business
My time at Cockpit coincided with some of the biggest changes in the Lorna Syson business.
I was developing my textile and homeware collections, working on new designs and gradually figuring out what this business was going to become.
The designs have always been inspired by the natural world — British birds, flowers, plants and the countryside — with inspiration coming from my childhood in Warwickshire, holidays in Cornwall and walks with my dog Jenkins.
But it wasn’t just about designing.
There were orders to pack, customers to speak to, trade shows to prepare for, new products to develop and, inevitably, plenty of mistakes to learn from.
Cockpit gave me somewhere to do all of that while being surrounded by other people building creative businesses of their own.
Open Studios
One of my favourite things about Cockpit was the Open Studios.
Twice a year, the normally private studios opened their doors to the public, giving people the chance to come behind the scenes, meet the makers and buy directly from independent designers.
These weekends were always a bit chaotic.
There was the frantic cleaning beforehand, trying to make the studio look presentable, deciding what to display and making sure there was enough stock.
And then the doors opened.
Suddenly the studio was full of people.
Customers could see where things were designed, ask questions, look at fabrics and colours and actually meet the person behind the products.
I still think there is something really special about that.
It’s one of the reasons I’m so excited about having a studio again now.
From Cockpit to Oxfordshire
Eventually, life moved on.
After seven years at Cockpit, I left London and moved the business to rural Oxfordshire.
The location changed, the business changed and eventually my life changed too.
Then, in 2020, my printers went out of business at the beginning of lockdown. My stock suddenly came back to me and ended up in our garage. From there, the business eventually moved to a warehouse in Swansea, which handled dispatch for the next five years.
And now, somehow, I’ve come full circle.
At the end of 2025, we built a studio in the garden. In April 2026, the stock came back from Wales and the business moved back into a studio that is, quite literally, at home.
It feels very different from Cockpit.
There’s no London commute.
No shared corridor full of makers.
No giant Open Studios weekend with hundreds of people wandering around.
But there is something familiar about having a dedicated space for the business again.
What Cockpit taught me
When I think about my time at Cockpit now, I don’t just remember the studio.
I remember the people.
I remember being surrounded by other small businesses and seeing people make a living from their creativity.
I remember learning that running a creative business isn’t just about being creative.
It’s about selling.
It’s about marketing.
It’s about accounts and stock and customers and suppliers.
It’s about trying something, discovering it doesn’t work and trying again.
And it’s about finding your people.
Cockpit was a huge part of the early Lorna Syson story. It gave me the space to grow, the community to learn from and somewhere for the business to feel real.
And although I’ve now swapped South East London for rural Oxfordshire, I think a little bit of Cockpit has stayed with me.
Especially the belief that independent businesses are better when we don’t have to do everything alone.
A new kind of Open Studio
One of the things I’m hoping to bring into this next chapter is a little bit of that Cockpit feeling here in Oxfordshire.
I’m planning more local events, open studio days and opportunities for people to come and see what actually happens behind the scenes at Lorna Syson.
Because after 17 years in business, I’ve realised that I still love that bit.
Showing people how things are made.
Talking about the inspiration behind the designs.
Hearing what people think.
And letting people see that behind every card, roll of wallpaper, piece of fabric or lampshade is a real person, a real business and a whole lot of work.
So, Cockpit Arts, thank you.
You were where Lorna Syson began.
And now, all these years later, I’m taking everything I learnt there into this next chapter — just with a much smaller commute.
