Proposal · prepared for The Hay Makers · 29 May 2026
A few specific fixes for haymakers.co.uk
The Hay Makers · Hay-on-Wye · website rebuild
I rebuild small-business sites in my spare time when I can see they are leaving good work on the table. I spent some time on haymakers.co.uk and three things stood out, mostly that the gallery just moved to Market Street but the site, and the listing Google reads, still point at the old St John’s door, and that seven makers are shown as products with no names. Three findings below, then a working rebuild you can click through.
Finding 01
The homepage still sends people to the old St John’s premises.
What I saw
The gallery left St John’s Place on 10 February 2026 and moved to 4 Market Street, next to the Butter Market. The homepage announces the move warmly, but lower down it still tells customers to send their item to St John’s Place, HR3 5BN. A first-time visitor reading top to bottom gets two addresses for the same gallery, and the wrong one is the one with a postcode beside it.
What the rebuild does
The rebuild states 4 Market Street, HR3 5AF once, clearly, in the header, the visit section and the footer, with a real map pinned to the new door beside the Butter Market. St John’s appears only as a line of history, never as a place to turn up at.
Finding 02
The business listing Google reads still has the old address and blank hours.
What I saw
In the page source the structured data the search engines read lists the gallery address as Saint Johns Place, with no postcode, no phone, and an opening-hours field that is completely empty. The new Market Street home, the seven resident makers and the festival exhibition programme are nowhere in it. So the gallery a phone hands back when someone searches near you for a Hay-on-Wye gallery is pointing at a building the co-op no longer occupies.
What the rebuild does
The rebuild ships ArtGallery and Store data with the 4 Market Street address, the postcode, the phone in full form, the seven disciplines and an FAQ block, so the listing that shows in search and in map apps matches the door people actually walk through.
Finding 03
Seven makers, but no name or story a visitor can read.
What I saw
The browser tab just says The Hay Makers, the homepage description tag is an empty string, and each maker is a grid of products with a price but no name, craft or sentence about who they are. A stranger cannot tell that Caitriona Cartwright trained on the Salisbury Cathedral spire, that Simon Hulbert throws the moon jars, or that Chris Armstrong turns the walnut bowls. The thing that makes a co-operative worth visiting, the people, is the thing the site leaves out.
What the rebuild does
The rebuild gives each of the seven makers a named card with their discipline and a line of their own story, a written page title and description, and a share card that does not render blank when the link is sent in a message. The co-op reads as seven people, not a product feed.
What it costs
No retainer. No contract. No in-person visits, fully remote from Switzerland.
- One round of revisions before launch
- DNS cutover handled (you keep the domain in your name)
- 30 days of post-launch tweaks at no extra cost
- Source code handed over on day 60 (you own everything)
A few things worth answering
What happens to the haymakers.co.uk domain and the info@ email?
The domain stays exactly as it is, in the co-operative’s name. Only the hosting moves, from Squarespace to a fast static build. The info@haymakers.co.uk address keeps working throughout. Nothing about how customers reach you changes, the site that answers them just gets quicker, clearer, and points at the right address.
We run the gallery between us. Who does the work and who reviews it?
I do the build remotely. I take the words, photos and maker details already on the current site, plus anything any of you want to add, and assemble it. One person from the co-op reviews a single round of changes before it goes live. The only thing I would ask for is a short call to confirm the maker stories read the way each maker would tell them.
Can we update exhibitions and add makers’ work after launch?
Yes. The monthly care option covers content changes, so when a new exhibition opens or a maker has new work to show, you send it over and it goes up. No Squarespace editor to wrestle with on the days you would rather be in the gallery.
If the proposal lands, reply with two or three 20-minute slots in the next ten days for a video call. I take on three Mid Wales and border builds this quarter, and the first confirmed wins the slot. If I do not hear back by 8 June, the proposal site comes down.
See the live rebuild ↗ A working preview you can click through. Opens in this tab.