Words by Linda Garrould · 2 June 2026
With Father’s Day falling on Sunday 21 June, we went looking for presents with a little more soul than the usual socks-and-aftershave. We found them on the Welsh coast — in the hand-drawn homewares of Driftwood Designs, where every mug, map and print is designed and made in Britain.
There is a particular kind of father who will not be hurried to bed until he has heard the Shipping Forecast. Rockall, Malin, Hebrides; the litany rolls out across the kitchen at five to one in the morning like a lullaby for the nautically minded, and woe betide anyone who reaches for the dial before it is done. If that sounds like the man you are buying for this June, the makers at Driftwood Designs may have read your mind.
For the dad who lives by the forecast
The Beaufort Scale large mug (£16) is the gift for him. Around its bone-china sides runs the full twelve-point Beaufort wind scale, drawn as a single continuous seascape: a serene paddle-boarder at a dead calm, building through a jaunty sailing dinghy and a fishing boat shouldering into the swell, all the way to the towering, lifeless water of a hurricane. It is a quietly beautiful thing to wrap both hands around while the small hours’ forecast plays out. Made in Britain, and the same artwork appears on tin signs, tea towels and cards should you wish to build the set.
It is, in short, a natural companion to our own Shipping Forecast gift guide — essential reading for anyone shopping for a devotee of Radio 4’s most hypnotic broadcast.
Rockall, Malin, Hebrides — a lullaby for the nautically minded.
A map of the airwaves
For the same fan, framed and on the wall, there is the Sea Areas fine art print (from £35), which charts those familiar regions — Dogger, Fisher, German Bight — across the waters of the British Isles in Lizzie Spikes’s painterly hand. Each is printed to order on archival fine-art paper at the National Library of Wales, signed, and built to outlast its owner; the pigment inks are rated to hold their colour for two centuries. It is the rare gift that doubles as a handsome piece of cartography.
The maker on the seafront
Driftwood Designs is the work of Lizzie Spikes, an artist born and raised in Aberystwyth whose gift is for turning bright, characterful illustration into objects you actually reach for — mugs, aprons, tea towels, cards and prints. With her business partner Becky Barratt she has grown the venture from a kitchen table to three shops along the Welsh coast, in Aberystwyth, Aberaeron and Cardiff, plus a generously stocked online store. For a family who would rather their money went to a small British studio than a sprawling marketplace, that provenance is part of the pleasure.
For the angler, and the dad at the hob
Lizzie’s Mackerel range — a shoal rendered in cool blues and burnished silver — is among her signatures, and it spans almost every budget, from around £4.50 to £28. For the fisherman there is a roomy bag for kit and lunch, a recycled-fibre thermal snood that can be worn a dozen ways, and a waterproof PacMat to keep him comfortable on a damp riverbank; add an enamel bottle opener and a cold beer is sorted. For the dad happier at the stove, the same design swims across chopping boards, aprons and oven gloves.
For the walker, the gardener, the quiet polymath
Driftwood’s fine art maps and charts are perennial favourites in the weeks before Father’s Day, and it is easy to see why a framed one makes such a keepsake. Unframed prints begin at £35 and a framed poster at a modest £40, all printed on recycled paper a mile from the studio. The real luxury is the choice: coastal-path maps and an infographic of mountain heights for the walker; illustrated charts of birds, wildflowers, butterflies and even mushrooms for the naturalist; a sow-and-harvest calendar for the gardener; and, for the dad who collects facts, a star chart for the astronomer and a periodic table rendered in Welsh. Proof that science can be rather beautiful on a wall.
And, for the rest of us, the small things
Not every gesture needs to be grand. If you are buying for several fathers, grandfathers and father-figures at once — or simply slipping something extra inside a card — the collection rewards a modest budget handsomely. Enamel bottle openers bearing Welsh summits, Yr Wyddfa (Snowdon), Pen y Fan and Cader Idris among them, are £8 apiece; map coasters start at £4.50; wooden hanging decorations come in under £5; and a Father’s Day card will set you back £2.40.
The complete line-up lives in the Driftwood Designs Father’s Day collection. One word to the well-organised: the fine art prints are made and signed to order, so allow seven to ten days if you intend to give one on the day itself.
Looking for more ideas? See our full Father’s Day gift guide, with picks for every kind of dad.
Prices correct at the time of writing. Product details and photography courtesy of Driftwood Designs. This is an independent editorial feature; we received no payment for it.
0 Comments