Last craftsperson from Lincre woodland festival this is Ben Willis. He was an apprentice with Mike Abbott 3 years ago and is a very competent pole lathe turner. He is also a freelance journalist and has written for I think he said the Telegraph and Guardian on environmental issues. At Linacre he was turning rounders bats out of the gorgeous…
Another fine craftsman at Linacre was John Richardson chairmaker. He makes fine ladderback chairs in the arts and crafts tradition. John lives on a narrowboat in Leicestershire and has a second boat as a workshop, this keeps his overheads low and his chairs are very reasonable though he is really semi retired now and does not make so many. I…
This is the last of my photos from Norfolk Show, I wanted to share the work of Terry Kenny a coracle maker from Newport Shropshire. Terry has done a great deal to popularise the coracle over the last 20 years, up until the 1950’s coracles were primarily used for fishing with nets on rivers like the Severn and Teifi. The…
Until a couple of years ago Jeremy was the only clogmaker in the country still using the traditional knives to hand cut clog soles and make traditional British clogs. As was traditional in the mill towns of Lancashire and Rural Wales I have a pair of working clogs and a pair of posh clogs, I also have a pair of…
This is my mate Adam King, he has been into traditional crafts all his life having grown up doing craft events with his dad Stuart King. Stuart and I visited Romania together researching traditional craftspeople in 1998. Adam is one of the last besom broom makers, he cuts young birch branches in the winter and dries them thoroughly, bundles them…
Whilst there are more willow basketmakers than swillers or trugmakers it is still a declining craft. There are a good number of amateurs and many people using basketmaking skills to produce sculpture, the area that is in decline is the full time working basketmaker producing functional baskets and this is arguably the area that demands the highest skill, some would…
Owen is one of my craft heroes. He learnt the craft from a retired swiller at a time when nobody else would take it on and has single handedly kept it alive for nearly 20 years. The swill is a Lakeland basket and they are regularly pictured in Beatrix Potters books. Designed for tough farm use such as picking potatoes,…
This morning I had to stay home with a sick son but Geoff braved the foul morning weather, high wind and driving rain to cut the last coping stones and finish off our bench. I went along in the afternoon to take some pictures just as he finished off. We are both really pleased with it. I see a great…
The bench is taking a little longer than anticipated as we expected to be working with second hand walling stone and with the new quarried stone we are having to cut all the coping stones which takes time. It is coming one very nicely though. Geoff tells me the oft repeated story that whenever a waller pics up a stone…
Today I have been working in a wonderful location again. This is the National Trust Longshaw Estate about 10 miles from home. I lived here 13 years ago but today I was back to fit a special bench. It is the first time I have worked with a dry stone waller mixing walling and green oak to create what I…
