Phil Harding told us how pleased he was to be asked to speak not as an archaeologist or as a man off the telly but as a craftsman. He was speaking at the V&A as one of the country’s top flint knappers and as a passionate supporter of traditional craft skills. Most of the Mastercrafts mentors joined us along with…
The Mastercrafts TV programs have generated tremendous interest in traditional crafts and highlighted the dedication required to learn the skills. What comes next? another series? we hope so. An end of show mastercrafts party? well sort of. The Heritage Crafts Association have been working hard to raise the profile of these crafts and bring all the crafts together to campaign…
Well I caught up with the weaving episode last night, very interesting and different again. It was good to see Monty getting to grips with a subject he knew nothing about, I learnt a lot too.If you missed it you can catch up on iplayer here I would have liked to see more different aspects of the craft, to visit…
Just a quick post tonight with an update on progress on my new bridge at Bradfield. On Thursday I worked for the first time with a new waller, Michael Howard. We dug out and laid concrete foundations for the first abutment and prepared the site for starting walling on Friday. The water level thankfully was as low as I have…
Yesterday we had a most promising meeting with UK Director of Culture Mick Elliot. He has been involved in initiatives in Stoke to recognise the importance of the pottery industry and as someone who lived for some time in Sheffield he was well aware of the importance of traditional cutlery making to the city. He liked the pocket knife and…
Monty Don’s Mastercrafts series is highlighting the skills involved in traditional crafts and bringing much needed attention. The Heritage Crafts Association have been campaigning to promote and protect these crafts so we are delighted with the publicity. I blogged just before the start of the series when I was looking through the proofs of the book, at that stage I…
The current big project is building a green oak bridge. This is the site where two previous bridges have washed away due to the force of the flood water we get round here. Last week with rain falling on snow on the hills the water rose over 3 feet overnight and turned a trickling brook into a fairly decent sized…
I am currently getting ready for a meeting with Mick Elliot, Director of Culture at DCMS, on Monday. Remember Sir Humphrey from yes minister? We don’t expect Mick Elliot will be anything like the famous fictional civil servant but if we are to get traditional crafts recognised and supported as part of our cultural heritage Mick Elliot could help oil…
I am not sure if anyone ever looks at the page links across to the right under “Links and Blogs” if you do and enjoy what you find there let me know. I only link to people I know well or causes I know about and believe in so it is not a long list. Today I added a new…
Would you like to see some beautiful wooden bowls? These are not my work but carved by students on a most enjoyable course this week. Having been offering spoon carving courses for some years now it was a natural progression to offer a bowl carving course but I was not quite happy with any of the techniques or particularly…
