Gift brand gets up close and personal in York

‘TIS the season to be jolly, especially for the family behind gift personalisation brand MarbleTree, who are celebrating the one of their busiest seasons with their own chalet at York Christmas market.

For the next six weeks, the online brand – which specialises in personalising handcrafted gifts made from Cumbrian slate and marble – will be showcasing their wares and taking orders from Parliament Street in the heart of York’s city centre.

Owned and run by brother and sister Chris Harrison and Jayne Little, MarbleTree was launched five years ago to offer personal, yet practical gifts that would stand the test of time and serve as unique Christmas and wedding gifts.

Jayne, who lives and works in York said: “It’s really nice when you’re standing on a Christmas market and people say ‘I’ve never seen gifts like that before’. That’s quite unusual these days as a lot of things you can get in big department stores.

“But in York very few people are local, most people have come for the weekend or for a couple of days, so at York market last weekend we were taking orders from people from Birmingham, Devon and even Aberdeen!”

In the run up to Christmas, customers can browse the various gifts on offer at MarbleTree, from the popular marble wine coolers to slate cheese boards, before selecting and ordering the product there and then.

All the gifts are designed, photographed and marketed by Jayne while brother Chris handcrafts, personalises and packages them at the brand’s Lake District workshop.

Jayne added: “We chose marble because it’s quite a premium product so it will naturally stay cold. If you put wine in our wine cooler, it will keep the temperature so you don’t have to add ice and faff around.”

The wine cooler and personalised marble ice cubes – which are part of this year’s Christmas collection – are also on offer on the MarbleTree website and from online retail giant, Notonthehighstreet. Unlike most companies, MarbleTree does not wish to expand internationally or launch into popular stores, but instead wants to remain true to its integral values.

Jayne said: “Because we design it and its all handcrafted in the workshop, we like to keep it unique and special so even though we’ve had quite a few of the big boys asking if we’ll supply them, we declined because we want the brand to remain niche.”