Bernard Sleigh

Bernard Sleigh (1872 – 7 December 1954) was an English mural painter, stained-glass artist, illustrator and wood engraver, best known for An Ancient Mappe of Fairyland, Newly Discovered and Set Forth (1917), which depicts numerous characters from legends and fairytales.

[1] Born and raised in Kings Norton in the semi-rural south of the industrial city of Birmingham, Sleigh was apprenticed to a wood engraver at the age of 14.

Shortly after success with The Ancient Mappe, Sleigh undertook commercial cartography with a large series of black and white picture-maps of his home city of Birmingham.

[1] In 1900 he married Stella D. Phillp, producing a son, Brocas Linwood, in 1902 and in 1906 a daughter, Barbara Grace de Riemer, who became a children's writer.

Sleigh retired to Chipping Campden in 1937, like his mentor Arthur Gaskin, moving into Old Forge Cottage in Cider Mill Lane.