About Us
The Trust is governed by a Board of Trustees with expertise in craft, heritage, ecology, arts and organisational development. Our staff and associates work collaboratively with makers, educators, environmental partners and communities across Scotland. Together we steward The Steading and extend Tim Stead’s influence through partnerships, exhibitions, learning and research.
Meet The Team
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Donald McPhillimy
CHAIR (2023-Present)
Donald McPhillimy - B Ecol. Sci - Trustee - Chair
Donald became the proud owner of one of Tim’s wooden axe heads early in 1987 and sought him out to ask him about it. Within a year he had worked closely with Tim and others to buy Wooplaw wood, the first community woodland in the UK. As a forester, Donald has a keen interest in community woodlands, all kinds of small woodlands, ecological restoration, hutting, environmental activism and all things made out of wood.
He runs his own woodland advisory business from home, just down the road from The Steading in Earlston. He is very involved with green issues and the route to Net Zero through his leading role with Greener Melrose, a local Transition group.
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Mark Hoskyns-Abrahall
TREASURER (2023- Present)
Mark Hoskyns-Abrahall BSc, FCA - Treasurer & Trustee
Former Senior Partner for PwC in Edinburgh, Mark spent 32 years as an auditor, before retiring in 2021. An experienced Charity Trustee and past Council Member of The Institute of Chartered Accountants of Scotland, he lives in East Lothian. He recently graduated from the Chippendale International School of Furniture.
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David Peace
SECRETARY (September 2024 - Present)
David Peace BSc (Hons) Estate Management - Secretary to the Board, Trustee
David trained as a Chartered Surveyor and worked for 10 years in mainly sales and acquisitions of country houses, farms and sporting estates in North West England and Scotland before moving to Management Consultancy. He ran the consultancy arm of a multidisciplinary practice in Scotland working across the public, private and third sectors for a further 10 years before switching to self employment. David worked in various roles including shirt making, insurance claim investigations, property development and rentals and team building for a further 10 years. David now works as a Mentor to Chief Officers and an Interim Executive helping organisations overcome short term Senior level staffing gaps and other issues. David sits on the Board of the Borders Further Education Trust and has coached rugby for over 15 years.
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Benjamin Tindall
TRUSTEE (2015 - Present)
Benjamin Tindall - B.Soc.Sci, Dip. Arch, FRIAS, RIBA, FSA(Scot) - Trustee
Ben knew Tim and was trained as a carpenter in Denmark. As Benjamin Tindall Architects, he has practised ‘the Art and Craft of architecture’ for more than 40 years, for a wide variety of clients and building types, ranging from affordable housing on Barra to The Queen’s Gallery at Holyroodhouse. Ben is at the forefront of sustainability with an emphasis on utilising embodied energy and insulation. The Practice is advising the Trust.
He has served on the Council and Board of the National Trust for Scotland for 21 years, was Chair and trustee of the Patrick Geddes Memorial Trust for 10 years, a trustee of the Traverse Theatre and a founder of the Scotch Malt Whisky Society. He owns a share of a forest which he helps manage and is also a part-time harbourmaster.
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Nichola Fletcher
TRUSTEE (2015 - Present)
Nichola Fletcher Dip. A.D. (Edin), MBE - Trustee
Lead of Finance and Fundraising Committee
Nichola Fletcher, MBE, was Chair of the Tim Stead Trust from its inception in 2015 until 2023; she led the successful fundraising campaign that secured the purchase of The Steading. Nichola is a practising designer, goldsmith and a food writer. She also ran an award-winning rural artisan food business that provided 6 FTJEs. For twenty years she managed the holiday letting of a tower in France. Nichola is currently Vice Chair of Sharmanka Kinetic Theatre in Glasgow, a dissident Russian arts organisation that Tim and Maggy Stead were instrumental in bringing to Scotland.
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Sam Stead
TRUSTEE (2015 - Present)
Sam Stead - BA(Hons), BSc - Trustee
Sam is the son of Tim Stead and grew up in The Steading. After graduating from Glasgow School of Art, Sam worked for 9 years at the Edinburgh Sculpture Workshop. He is now an artist and part-time Vocational Tutor at Reading College in Berkshire. Sam is also the Chair of Open Hand Open Space, an artist-run charity providing studios and opportunities for artists in and around Reading.
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Claudia Zieske
ROLE (2025 - Present)
Claudia Zeiske is a cultural activist and Walking Curator. Her practice stems from Deveron Projects in rural Scotland where she was the founding Director. Here ‘the town is the venue’ rather than a gallery or arts centre based on a balanced approach between artistic criticality and community involvement. With a special interest in rural arts development, she employs anthropological methods, called Transformational Fieldwork. Her experiences come from participatory arts, linking local activities with global realities.
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Rachel Hunter
LEAD OF MUSEUM ACCREDITATION COMMITTEE (2025 - Present)
Rachel Hunter is a Borders-based heritage consultant who has worked with a wider range of museums, arts and heritage organisations across the UK, most recently involved in raising funds and project delivery of The Jim Clark Motorsport Museum in Duns and the Trimontium Museum in Melrose. She has a particular interest in connecting people to heritage and place through interpretation and engagement.
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Rory MacLeod
ROLE (2021- Present)
With a career backdrop of teaching, community development and youth work in a range of roles nationally and Europe wide, and also former director of a national agency advising government. Rory has enjoyed 28 years as a radio broadcaster and producer, developed a person-focused counsellor practice. He has also been active for 20 years in the Scottish Youth Justice system (Children’s Panel).
He has been involved in a range of charities across Scottish Borders and enjoys writing poetry. He is also a co-founder of Borders Community Woodland, then Borders Forest Trust, first chair and trustee for 15 years.
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Jessica Bailey
ROLE (2025 - Present)
Advisers
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Sandy Hellowell
ADVISER (2015 - Present)
Sandy Hellowell - HNC Tourism - Advisor
With a facility for learning languages Sandy started her working life as a teacher in schools in England. In 1991 she took up a post as lecturer at Scottish Borders College which is where she met and became friends with Maggy and Tim Stead and came to be a dedicated admirer and owner of Tim’s work. 1995 saw a change of career and retraining to work in tourism until retirement at the end of 2011. Sandy has lived in the village of Blainslie, with her husband, for 25 years and is therefore well known in the local community and a frequent visitor to the Steading. This is a place that inspires others and there is still a magical feel to the Steading which I look forward to sharing with as many people as possible to experience the creativity of Tim Stead.
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Roland Bean
ADVISER (2018 - Present)
Roland Bean - MA(Hons), MPhil, MA - Advisor
A former Head of Planning for a Scottish Local Authority, Roland has long been a fan of Tim’s work. He sits on several trusts and is Vice Chair of the Gannochy Trust. He has also just completed 9 years as a Commissioner with Boundaries Scotland.
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Lev Atlas
ROLE (2015 - Present)
Dr Lev Atlas, PhD, Mus Phil
Lev is Principal Viola for the Scottish Opera Orchestra and Professor at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. His playing (both classical and his lively Klesmer music) was deeply loved by Tim Stead. Lev is Artistic Adviser for Erasmus+projects and he is interested in working collaboratively between the Trust and creative musicians in Scotland.
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Maggy Stead
ARCHIVE & LEGACY ADVISER (2015 - Present)
Maggy met Tim Stead in Glasgow in 1975 and they married the following year. Maggy assisted Tim with his furniture business until his death in 2000 when she took on the running of the workshop for another 13 years. Maggy’s close involvement means that she is the foremost expert on the furniture, sculpture and the history of Tim Stead. Following his death, Maggy began to archive Tim’s sculptures and associated works creating the basis for the current collection documentation. Her work to promote the legacy of Tim’s work and preserve the Steading through selling the house and gifting the archive and collection to the Tim Stead Trust has provided the foundation for the trust’s current position.
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Dr Giles Hansen Sutherland MA, MPhil, MSc, PhD, AICA, NUJ
ARCHIVE & RESEARCH ADVISER (2018 - Present)
Giles is a writer, poet, critic and educator working across art, craft, ecology and experimental pedagogy. His doctoral research examined Richard Demarco’s Edinburgh Arts summer schools (1972–80), situating them within broader traditions of collaborative, peripatetic and arts-based learning, drawing extensively on The Demarco Archive.
He has been Art Critic for The Times (Scotland) since 1999 and has contributed to international publications including the Financial Times, American Craft, Crafts, the Times Literary Supplement and the BBC. Over three decades he has written widely on contemporary art, sculpture, architecture and environmental practice.
His books include Explorations in Wood (1993) and With the Grain (2005), reflecting a sustained engagement with wood culture, material philosophy and the legacy of Tim Stead. Alongside his critical work, he is an active poet exploring landscape, memory, exile and the forest. He teaches internationally, including in Ukraine and Poland, and develops interdisciplinary courses linking ecology, philosophy, poetry and making.
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Fiona Coulton
MUSEUM ARCHIVE & COLLECTION CURATORIAL ADVISER
Fiona is Interim Head of Culture (Museums, Galleries, Archives & Libraries) at Live Borders Culture. She worked with Maggy Stead on an initial scoping report of Tim’s archive before the Trust took over, and is now working in partnership with the Trust on our journey to achieving Museum Accreditation.
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Fiona Drane
MARKETING & COMMUNICATIONS ADVISER (2020 - Present)
Fiona has spent over thirty years promoting rural Scottish businesses. She runs Fona Drane Marketing and has been a supporter of the Trust since its inception. She helps us with our social media and press contacts and is therefore a crucial part of our promotion and public relations work.
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Andrew Fletcher
COLLECTIONS & ARCHIVE (2025 - Present)
Established in 1993, Andrew’s business, Twentieth Century Antiques specialises in 20th Century decorative arts and antiques, classic Scandinavian midcentury furniture and modern British art. Andrew first became aware of Tim Stead’s work in the 1980s through visiting In Design, a gallery in Chester where Tim’s furniture was being sold by Alan and Susan Brown. He found Tim’s furniture to be alluringly organic, sculptural and tactile, sparking his lifelong interest in design.
Andrew believes that now is the perfect time to re-assess Tim’s work and see it in the context of current market trends. He has clients who happily mix Scandinavian midcentury design with Tim’s furniture, and considers that well-chosen pieces look perfect in traditional, contemporary, midcentury or minimalist interiors. Andrew is now the leading specialist dealer in Tim Stead furniture and works alongside the Trust to source missing pieces for the collection, as well as advising the Trust on its archive: a full circle from first seeing Tim’s work in the early 1980s to now working with the Trust.