Wharram Percy sits quietly on the open slopes of the Yorkshire Wolds, a place where the outline of a ruined church and the terraces of ancient fields still shape the land. Once a busy medieval village, now a celebrated historic site and archaeological landscape, Wharram Percy invites the imagination: a pocket of history where whispers of daily life from centuries past meet the endless English sky.
This travel poster honours that meeting of past and present. The composition centres on the remaining church ruins - their battlemented tower and arched openings rendered with clean, confident shapes - while a gently winding path leads the eye through layered fields. The rolling chalk hills are shown as soft terraces of green and ochre, a reminder of the Wolds' folded landscape and the way people once coaxed food from the slopes.
History at Wharram Percy is tangible rather than theatrical. Abandoned in the late medieval period, the village has been revealed by careful excavation and study; stone foundations, hollow ways and the church itself tell of lives lived close to the land. The site is a quiet classroom for anyone who loves history, archaeology or simply the weathered beauty of rural England. Birdsong and sheep replace the old hubbub now, giving the place a meditative, almost romantic silence that the poster aims to capture.
The artwork adopts a vintage travel-poster aesthetic - simplified forms, a limited palette and strong, legible typography. Colours are chosen to echo the place: sun-warmed sandstone ochres for the church, olive and moss greens for pasture and terraces, and a clear, cool sky of muted blues and cream. These tones suggest late afternoon light and the soft contrasts of the Wolds, producing a mood that is both nostalgic and quietly dramatic.
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