A BOOK OF ENGLISH TRADESEnglish Heritage; £5.99, 92ppONE OF THE MOST noticeable and regrettable effects of the 20th century has been the rapid erosion of traditional crafts in England. The relentless progress of urbanisation, the rise of mass production and the destruction of family firms have meant that craftsmen have become a dwindling band in today’s society. Although we might imagine that the reaction of the public to this fact would be indifference, that’s really not true.
It could be argued that traditional crafts are an anachronism but people today are fascinated to see craftsmen such as blacksmiths, thatchers and stonemasons at work.
However, the traditional crafts that these people practise — and that are celebrated in English Heritage’s reissue of the 1818 A Book of English Trades — are not just tourist attractions, they are vital for maintaining the historic fabric of our nation.
Half of the buildings in England date from before 1919 and of the two million builders who work in the construction industry only 40,000 are employed in the conservation and repair of historic buildings. These people are vital for the future of our 370,000 listed buildings, all of which need specialist types of care at some time in their lives.
This is why English Heritage has taken the lead in focusing attention on how traditional crafts still play a role in society today. Without them we risk losing the traditional character of our villages, towns, cities and the countryside that surrounds them.
An important part of our response to this crisis has been setting up the National Heritage Training Group, whose ultimate goal is to reduce the decline in the number of workers trained in traditional crafts. The work of the group will not be easy.
Many traditional craftsmen are now reaching retirement age and it is often proving very difficult to recruit younger people into these jobs.
While it’s easy to be pessimistic about the future of traditional crafts in England I believe that there are many reasons why we should feel optimistic. The first of these is that the rise of the green movement has led to a rejection of many mass-produced products and a rise in the demand for authentic hand-made goods. This applies to everything from furniture to children’s toys.
The growth of farmers’ markets and county shows has made it easier for small suppliers to reach this market. There are high expectations for organisations such as English Heritage and The National Trust to source locally produced, hand-made goods for their own shops, which we both endeavour to do.
We find that visitors to historic sites demand more individualised, customised products and attach better value to those with historical associations. The most common sight at an English Heritage castle is a small boy running amok with his handmade wooden sword — little does he realise that he is striking a blow for the survival of the traditional crafts that produced it.
Pewterer
Fleur Grenier
I became a pewterer via my silversmithing degree and now have a workshop in Sussex. I make everything from cheese knives to mini spirit levels and I like sculptural design that people will use. There is a preconception that pewter is dull and traditional — people associate it with old tankers and hipflasks — but I use a lead- free pewter that resembles silver. It has a tactile quality and when I show my work, people always want to touch it. My favourite design was my salt and pepper shakers. They fit perfectly into the hand and look like little sculptures on the table. I love my job and people often say that they’d want to do what I do.
But they probably think it easier than it is; after a day in the workshop I still have to go home and do the paperwork. Still, I can’t imagine doing anything else. www.fleurgrenier.co.uk
Brick-maker
Jim Matthews
We’re a traditional works, mostly unchanged from when the book was published. The techniques are the same. We shift the clay with forklifts but we still roll and mould it by hand. We can work all year round now, too. In the past bricks were made seasonally, when they could be dried outside without danger of frost cracking them.
Unlike in the book, we’re not regulated in terms of what goes into the bricks. We aim to make the highest quality bricks possible, though, so we only put in what we know will give the best result.
Selecting the right clay has always been the most important part of brick-making. A brick-maker and his workshop used to go wherever a good source was, now it’s feasible to bring it to us. But a good brick-maker is always involved in choosing and screening his own clay or he’ll never get anything right. www.chartwellbrickworks.com
Glass-blower
Andrew Sanders
The great thing about glass-blowing now is that we’re making pieces that we’ve designed ourselves. In the old days, people did piecework: I met one chap who’d made the same honey pots every day for the whole of his working life. We’re commissioned, but within that we can choose form and colour — there’s a lot of variety in the things we make.
Conditions are better too. We use cullet, recycled glass, instead of the old lead glass. It can be worked at a lower temperature in a gas furnace. Before, they had a coal-fired furnace chamber below the workshop’s floor and a big, bottle-shaped chimney in the middle of it. It would have been dark and tremendously hot. We still use the same skills, though. It’s strange and quite exciting to think that I could have got a job working for the fellow in the engraving in the book, or anyone right back to Roman times. www.kingstreetworkshops.co.uk/glassmakers
Wheelwright
Mark Broadbent
The sequence of making a wheel hasn’t changed at all, they got it right in the old days and you can’t improve on it. In fact, big firms were once more mechanised and specialised than we are today, with machines for boring hubs and running out spokes that just don’t exist any more.
We are more like a village wheelwright in that we do everything: building carriages and wagons, making the wheels for them and doing repairs and restoration, too.
Our bread and butter is modern competition carriages and steel wheels to go with them. We are also the only people in the country who’ll make a complete road coach, absolutely traditionally, all the way through. That’s a 3,000-hour job.
We’ve received more awards than any other wheelwright and carriageworks in the world. But like 200 years ago the business is not hugely profitable. We do it because we enjoy it. www.fenixcarriages.co.uk
Cooper
Les Skinner
Coopering is not only a dying trade, it’s already virtually dead. I served my time on hand tools and am probably the last guy in England to do so. I can use them to make a barrel with wooden hoops from new timber — that’s cutting and dressing the staves myself.
Now it’s mostly reconstruction work, cannibalising old barrels so the wood looks aged. I made the barrels for a TV show about the Gunpowder Plot, for the Tower of London, for Hampton Court. If someone comes on to us, I’ll have a go at anything: I made 1,000 pine barrels for Marks and Spencer. I’ve even done them for an Irish bar in Texas. But it’s much quieter than it used to be. I employed eight guys once, now it’s just me and one part-timer. Once I’m done with coopering, it’ll be finished in Liverpool. www.barrels.org.uk
Interviews by Andy Heath and Zoë Paxton
