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Magnus The Magnificent
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Handcrafted in
North Yorkshire
Child Safe
Non Toxic
Made to Order
7-Day Turnaround
30-Day
Free Returns
An invitation to play
Built for small hands, not for a high shelf
Most nativity sets are for looking at. This one is for playing with too.
The pieces are chunky, smooth and naturally beautiful. They can be safely left in the hands of a three-year-old. There are no thin arms to snap off, no separate accessories to vanish under the sofa, and nothing that needs putting back out of reach once the grown-ups have admired it.
A nativity set kept safe on the mantelpiece is something children learn to be careful around. A nativity set they can handle becomes theirs. Something to be built, knocked over, rearranged, argued over. The setting for a story told and retold in their own words long before they can follow the story in a reading.
Shaped for the imagination
Just enough detail to know who everyone is
A fold in a robe. The suggestion of a face turned toward the manger. Every piece carries enough to tell you who it is and no more, and the restraint is deliberate.
Give a child a Joseph whose expression is already decided and the story is finished before they have picked him up. Give them one who could be worried, or relieved, or quietly proud, and they get to decide, differently every time they play.
Too much detail and a figure becomes something to look at rather than something to think with. Too little and there is nothing to hang a story on. Somewhere in between is where the play happens, and that is the gap we are carving for.
Wood with a story of its own
Two woods, and why
Spalted beech, for the figures
Spalted beech is prized for its natural figuring and the dark marbled lines a natural fungal process draws through the timber as it season.
Ours comes from wind-felled and end-of-life trees here in North Yorkshire.The grain and pattern runs differently through every plank we use so each piece is totally unique. That means the set you unwrap this Christmas will be unlike any other set we will ever make.
Olive wood, for the stable and baby Jesus
The stable, its roof and the manger are shaped from Mediterranean olive wood rather than spalted beech. Olive trees are native to the Holy Land, and the young Jesus would very likely have worked with their wood as a carpenter. There are still olive trees alive today that were growing at the time of his birth.
That same endurance is written into the woodgrain. Olive wood grows slowly, under stress, in dry and rocky ground, and what it gives back is some of the most dramatically figured timber you can find. Swirling patterns of pale gold and rich brown, proof that beauty can be born out of hardship.
Hand-sanded and oiled, it takes on a smooth, almost silken feel under your fingers, dense and cool to the touch in a way few other woods can match. A fitting choice for the stable where a servant king was born.
Wood so beautiful it needs no help from paint, lacquer or gilding.
Meet the pieces
What's in the box
1 pieces, each one shaped, sanded and oiled by hand in our North Yorkshire workshop.
Magnus the Magnificent
Spalted beech
22mm × 42mm
Colours and grain patterns vary from set to set. All dimensions are maximum size. All pieces are 18mm thick, which is what gives the buildings their stability once stacked.
Crafted with love and respect
Every piece is shaped and finished by hand in our own Yorkshire workshop. No mass production, no shipping containers, no gaudy paint jobs. Just slow, deliberate craft, a love of wood, and respect for the story.
Step one
Cut with precision
Positioned to make the most of the wood grain.
Step two
Sanded by hand
Every face and every edge, until there is nothing left to catch a small hand.
Step three
Oiled for beauty
A non-toxic finish that brings out the figure in the wood. No paint, no lacquer.
You do not have to choose between a nativity your children can actually handle and one you are happy to have out on the mantelpiece. Ours is both.
Seven sets, built to be collected
Build Your Own Bethlehem
Start with the Foundation Set, the stable, the manger and the Holy Family. It is complete on its own, and it is also a beginning. Each year you can add another set to the same Bethlehem.
Same hands, same workshop, same two woods, so everything you add sits alongside what you already own as though it always belonged there.
FAQ
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Yes. The pieces are solid, 18mm thick, sanded smooth with rounded edges and finished with a non-toxic oil. There are no small parts to come loose, no glued joints and no coatings to chew off. As with any wooden toy, we would not leave a child under three unsupervised with the smaller pieces.
The only piece we do not recommend for very small children is the optional Magnus the magnificent figure. -
Because a person made it. Each piece is shaped, sanded and oiled by hand in our own Yorkshire workshop from timber we selected, rather than stamped out by the thousand and shipped in from overseas. You are buying one of a kind rather than one of fifty thousand, and something that will still be in the family when the child playing with it has children of their own.
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Yes. Every set is made by the same hands, in the same workshop, from the same spalted beech and olive wood. Grain and colour vary from piece to piece by nature – that is what makes each set unique – but the style, thickness and scale are identical across the whole range.
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No. There is nothing to assemble. The pieces are blocks: they stack and sit against each other, with no joints, no fixings and no instructions to lose. Every piece is a solid 18mm thick, in line with most wooden block sets, and that thickness is what gives the buildings their stability once they are stacked. Build it, knock it down, build it again.
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The beech is Yorkshire, from wind-felled and end-of-life trees near the workshop. The olive wood is Mediterranean, the same species that has grown across the Holy Land for thousands of years.
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Each set is made to order with a 7-day turnaround, then despatched on a tracked service. Order by 6th December and we guarantee it will be with you for Christmas. We keep shipping until 18 December, but after the 6th we cannot promise it arrives in time.
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You can. The Complete Nativity brings all seven sets together at a saving compared to buying them separately.
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We don't offer a gift wrapping service at the moment.
Every set arrives in a beautiful, recyclable kraft card box, suitable for giving as it is. -
Dust it, play with it, and wipe it with a barely damp cloth if it needs it. Avoid soaking, dishwashers and radiators. A drop of food-safe oil every few years will bring the grain and figuring back to life.
About this set
