Bucklebury, Kate Middleton, and George Lailey

For years Bucklebury has been a little known spot in rural Berkshire but it was once rather famous and it seems it is about to become so again.

When HV Morton set out "in Search of England" in 1927 he drove out of London looking for the soul of Englishness. The very first place he stopped was Bucklebury;

"I would not care to be the postman at Bucklebury. The cottages hide one from the other; the hamlet is spread generously over little hillocks, so that a man in a motor-car has a fair chance of finding himself in Stamford Dingley or Yattendon or Frilsham, or even Beenham, before he discover his object in this gorsy labyrinth. And why not? These names have quality. These lanes are so friendly."

It is not so far from the Bucklebury I know today though the gorse has been replaced by birch and the cottages have grown rather. Morton was told he should visit a remarkable craftsman "the last bowlturner in England....you ought to look at his workshop, for you will never see another one like it."

He found Lailey in his workshop on Bucklebury common where he showed him how he made the bowls on his foot powered lathe just as they had in medieval times. The bowls were used by locals in the kitchen and were common wedding presents.

What is Sloyd?

All of a sudden I have heard lots of folk talking about "sloyd". Like "utsushi" in my last post this is a foreign word which has many subtle meanings which are lost in the normal translation simply as "handcraft". This word I know a little more about though having spent some time in Sweden and teaching at the national handcraft school at Saterglantan.

Sloyd or slöjd in the 19th century could perhaps have been translated as handcraft though it seems most commonly applied to the woodwork and the wider range of home crafts including textiles etc tend to be called hemslöjd. Sloyd like craft had dual meanings of sleight of hand or crafty but the real change came in the late 19th century. Uno Cygnaeus introduced crafts or sloyd as a mandatory subject in the Finish school system. Later Otto Salomon developed the ideas further in Sweden and popularised them through his teachings at the international craft teachers school at Naas.

can art be taught? utsushi the art of the faithful replica

Is this utsushi?

the last glass eye maker

From The Times online

"IN A SMALL room overlooking a quiet North London street, Jost Haas sits in a white coat at a cluttered table, delicately blowing into a glass tube until a ball bubbles out from the end. Using skills unchanged for 170 years, he is making an artificial eye such as those that stare unseeing from a wooden tray at his elbow.

It is 35 years since Haas left Germany and brought his wife, Ulla, to this house in Mill Hill, where they raised a daughter. At that time Britain needed two or three glass-eye makers, who, because of the traditional skills used there, usually came from Germany. Now 66-year-old Haas is the only one. When he decides to retire, continuation of the craft here will almost certainly depend on whether a successor can be found from his native country."


The Glass Eye Maker from Tomas Leach on Vimeo.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article864693.ece

huge Sheffield grinding wheel

I was at Portland Works in Sheffield last week and wanted to share a couple of pics of Andrew at Wigful tools grinding a 3" bolster chisel. I have learnt a lot from Sheffield folk about grinding, forging, hardening and tempering steel but when I see proper professionals at work I still feel very much an amateur with my metalwork.

please sign petition to save traditional boatbuilding site.

I have written about Standard Quay at Faversham before here 
and there was a good article in the Guardian here