Daniel Chadwick is an artist, engineer and accidental restaurateur and publican whose work has, over the past 25 years, become as much about places and people as it is about sculpture.
In 1999, Daniel bought The Woolpack in Slad, just two years after the death of Laurie Lee, whose 'Cider with Rosie' had put the village and its pub firmly on the cultural map. What began as an unlikely venture slowly became a labour of love. Daniel restored The Woolpack - much of it with his own hands - and brought it back to life as a proper village pub: a place with a thrumming local drinking scene, roaring fires, a tiny bookshop, a terrace looking across the Slad Valley and a dining room serving an ever-changing menu rooted in British seasons and local produce. Today, The Woolpack is one of Stroud’s most cherished institutions.
Daniel’s instinct has always been to breathe new life into old places rather than simply preserve them. He grew up across the valley at Lypiatt Park, the medieval Tudor-Gothic manor that has been his family home and is now a gathering place for artists, friends and the wider creative world. Following in the footsteps of his father, the sculptor Lynn Chadwick, Daniel became an artist, sculptor and engineer, developing his own fascination with movement, mechanics and kinetic sculpture.
At Lypiatt, Daniel has woven his own kinetic works into the landscape alongside large-scale works by some of Britain’s most significant contemporary artists, including his close friend Damien Hirst. He has also carefully preserved the surrounding grounds as a sculpture park, creating a permanent home for his father’s work. The result is a living, evolving landscape in which art, architecture, nature and hospitality overlap.
That same instinct for restoration and reinvention led Daniel to Stroud’s Old Music Centre, which he bought in 2011. Once a much-loved but rundown local building, it became another of Daniel's projects. After a brief attempt to turn it into a pizza-oven factory, the building found a new life as Juliet, opening its doors in October 2024.
Once again, Daniel’s approach was instinctive rather than formulaic. Working with local traders, makers and recycled materials, he transformed the space through patience, imagination and a considerable amount of hard graft - including cutting and laying the parquet floor himself.
Juliet carries the same qualities that have come to define Daniel’s places: an effortless sense of bonhomie, a deep connection to its surroundings and the feeling that you have stumbled upon somewhere that has always been there. His projects are defined by character, craft and connection - bringing together old buildings, good food, art, landscape and the people who make a place what it is.