Caribelle Batik

{"type":"root","children":[{"type":"paragraph","children":[{"type":"text","value":"Maurice Widdowson visited St. Kitts in 1974 on a consulting project and never left. He purchased the rundown Romney Manor estate, where Sam Jefferson, the great-great grandfather of Thomas Jefferson, ran the first plantation in the English Caribbean in 1625. In 1834, Lord Romney freed his enslaved workers, the first estate in St. Kitts to do so."}]},{"type":"paragraph","children":[{"type":"text","value":"Maurice learned batik in Zambia before founding Caribelle Batik in 1975. The name combines 'Carib' for the region and 'Belle' for the French word beautiful. The studio uses ancient Indonesian wax-resist methods on sea island cotton: white fabric, hot wax applied with tjanting pens or tjapp stamps, then dye baths and air drying. The 400-year-old Saman tree in the garden shades the entire operation."}]},{"type":"paragraph","children":[{"type":"text","value":"Caribelle employs 36 local staff. Many have been with the company over 20 years, some since the original 1975 intake. Maurice received a Medal of Honour from the SKN government for his contributions to heritage and conservation. His son Jack runs the neighbouring Old Road Rum at Wingfield Estate; daughter Harriet and wife Debbie are part of the family operation."}]}]}

On the shelf