Digest
June 2026
30 entries added in June 2026 - 20subjects - 4essays - 2 journal / field diary pieces.
Permalink: /digest/2026-06
Subjects documented
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Phil Benton, Cutler
A master cutler of more than forty years in the trade, at Chimo Sheffield Manufacturing. The son of a Sheffield cutlery man, he resisted the factory as a young man and then spent a working life in it - taking a knife from a blank through stamping, grinding, serrating, hafting, sharpening and polishing, and now passing the whole sequence on to the next pair of hands.
MK-0019 -
Paul Weatherstone, Cutler
A cutler at Chimo Sheffield Manufacturing for fifteen years, running the knife-finishing section - drilling and heat-setting the tang into the handle, then grinding, edging and polishing the finished knife. He came to the trade from dye printing and other work, apprenticed for four months, and stayed. He now leads apprenticeships at Chimo, and the larger part of that job, he says, is keeping a young person interested in a repetitive craft long enough to be good at it.
MK-0020 -
Chris Shaw, Die Engraver
A die engraver at Chimo Sheffield Manufacturing who has cut steel dies for forty-five years - the only trade he has ever worked. A customer's artwork is worked up into a master pattern, traced on a pantograph die-sinking machine that cuts it into steel at size, and hand-finished; the finished die is the master tool that stamps a crest, a monogram or a mark into the cutlery and silverware the rest of the works makes. Hand engraving sits on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0021 -
Chris Hudson MBE, Founder of Chimo
The man who built Chimo. A Yorkshire-born Merchant Navy officer who came home to take over his family's Sheffield silverware business, in 1989 he gathered a set of independent cutlery, silver and pewter trades under one roof at the White Rose Works and kept their historic names alive. Appointed MBE in 2018 for services to exports and investment in Sheffield, Master of the Worshipful Company of Pewterers in 2020, and chair of the Work-wise Foundation - he is one of the last custodians of a Sheffield trade running short of the next generation.
MK-0022 -
Neil Wilson, Scissor Maker
The senior maker at Ernest Wright, the Sheffield scissor makers founded in 1902. A putter-togetherer trained under Eric Stones and Cliff Denton, Neil now runs the floor and has trained the rest of the makers in the workshop. He took the archive through the whole craft - the grinding of the blade's hollow and twist, the hardening, the rumbling, and the marriage of the two blades, where the gap between them is the secret of a clean cut.
MK-0023 -
Sam Aston-Clark, Putter-Togetherer
A putter-togetherer at Ernest Wright, the Sheffield scissor makers founded in 1902 - and the first trainee of the firm's current era to qualify fully as a putter, the five-year-apprenticed craftsman who marries the two blades of a pair of scissors so they cut. About ten years at the workshop, he does the defining job of the trade: hammering the curve onto each blade and setting the two together by hand and eye until the pair rides true.
MK-0024 -
Jonathan Reid, Scissor Maker
Production manager and a putter at Ernest Wright, the Sheffield scissor makers founded in 1902. Trained by two of the country's last master-putters, Jonathan is also the workshop's public voice - the one who gives the talks and interviews about a craft Heritage Crafts classes as critically endangered. About seven years at the bench.
MK-0025 -
Evan James, Scissor Grinder
One of the newer makers at Ernest Wright, the Sheffield scissor makers founded in 1902, and the workshop's grinder - about eighteen months in. His station is the grinding wheel, where a forged blade is taken down to its hollow and its edge, the spark-throwing stage that turns a rough forging into a blade that will cut. Scissor making is on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0026 -
James Morton, Scissor Maker
A scissor maker at Ernest Wright, the Sheffield scissor makers founded in 1902, about six years into the trade. His station is the grinding and finishing machines - the wheel and the abrasive belt that bring a forged blade up to its edge - and the work is the same exacting, spark-and-steel routine the firm has run for over a century. Scissor making is on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0027 -
Sabino Henda, Scissor Polisher
The polisher at Ernest Wright, the Sheffield scissor makers founded in 1902, with thirteen years on the wheel. Sabino works the polishing machine - buffing mops on a spinning spindle that take a finished pair of scissors to its bright final shine. It is dusty, exacting work, the last skilled hand a pair passes through before the maker's mark. Scissor making is on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0029 -
Stephen Wright, Silverware Maker
Stephen Wright runs William Wright in Sheffield, the cutlery and silverware firm named after his late father. He has spent his life in the trade and can work every stage of it himself - blanking and pressing the flatware, forming and finishing the holloware, plating and polishing the silver to its final shine. The firm has made forks, spoons, teapots, trays and cruets for the table for close to a century. Sheffield cutlery and silversmithing are on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0030 -
Kylie Cocker, Pocket-Knife Maker
Kylie Cocker hand-makes pocket and pen knives as a mester at Joseph Rodgers, in the workshop inside Kelham Island Museum, Sheffield. Folding knife making is on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0031 -
Kevin Wilebore, Leatherworker
Kevin Wilebore hand-makes leather bags, belts and sheaths - and the pouches for Ernest Wright's scissors - at Portland Works in Sheffield, the birthplace of stainless steel.
MK-0032 -
Grace Horne, Scissor Maker
Grace Horne hand-makes scissors in a former Victorian public toilet in Sheffield - a cutler, corsetiere and PhD who learned the trade at Ernest Wright and works without the old industrial machines. Scissor making is on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0033 -
Lily Marsh, Stone Sculptor
Lily Marsh carves stone in a shared studio at Stag Works in Sheffield - a sculptor who came to the trade after a psychology degree and a spell working in a prison, and who works alongside the letter cutter and stonemason Steve in the room they share.
MK-0034 -
Steve Roche, Letter Cutter and Stonemason
Steve Roche cuts letters and carves stone at Stag Works in Sheffield, the studio he runs and shares with the sculptor Lily Marsh. He came to the trade after a single month in 2008 cost him his job and a broken leg, retrained on a craft bursary, and now works on public lettering and stone commissions across the city.
MK-0035 -
Giridhar Vadukar, Bell Tuner
Giridhar Vadukar is the chief tuner at John Taylor & Co in Loughborough, the last major bell foundry in Britain, and one of only three bell tuners left in the country. Forty-seven years in the trade, thirty of them here, tuning each bell’s five notes by shaving metal from the inside - by ear as much as by eye. Bell founding is on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0036 -
Bill Bowes, Foreman
Bill Bowes is the foreman at John Taylor & Co in Loughborough, the last major bell foundry in Britain. Forty-one years with the firm, twenty-seven of them in the foundry, and the man who makes the iron that holds and swings a bell - the headstocks, the wheels, the fittings drilled and pinned to the thousandth. If Giridhar gives a bell its voice, Bill gives it the means to ring. Bell founding is on the Heritage Crafts Red List.
MK-0037 -
Yuyi Cheng, Jeweller & Silversmith
Yuyi Cheng makes contemporary jewellery in London in Chinese filigree inlay (hua si xiang qian) - a distinct tradition from Western filigree, in which the kingfisher-feather technique dian cui is one branch - alongside mother-of-pearl inlay (luodian). Trained as a metalworker in Taiwan and a jeweller in London, she gives endangered imperial Chinese methods a modern subject: the blue that looks like enamel is ethically sourced feather, laid by hand the way the empresses’ jewellers did it.
MK-0038 -
Carol Jackson
Carol Jackson is a steward of Chipping Campden. On a June morning in 2026 she took the archive through eight centuries of the town's history at her own kitchen table, then walked it round every landmark on one of the hottest days of the year. The first employee at Miss Selfridge in a former London life, she came to Campden as an incomer thirty-eight years ago and made herself one of the keepers of its story. Her own account, in her own voice, follows.
ST-0006
Journal entries
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A Morning at Taylor's
A morning inside John Taylor & Co in Loughborough, the last major bell foundry in Britain - the casting floor, the moulds, the raw bells, and the people who make them: the chief tuner Giridhar Vadukar, the foreman Bill Bowes, and the team who gave the archive a proper shoot.
JN-0020 -
Inside the Bellfoundry Museum
The John Taylor Bellfoundry Museum in Loughborough, walked before opening with full access and then on the public tour - the history of a craft unbroken since the fourteenth century, the moulding and casting laid out, and a tour guide who is a bell-ringer himself.
JN-0021
Essays
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A Morning at Ernest Wright
Ernest Wright has made scissors by hand in Sheffield since 1902 - the last hand-scissor workshop in the centre of a city that once had a hundred. Founded by five generations of one family, brought to the edge of extinction, and rescued in 2018 by two men who would not let it die, it is now one of England's most quietly iconic workshops. A morning inside, from the red door on Broad Lane to the putter who marries the blades.
ES-0057 -
A Morning at William Wright
William Wright has made cutlery and silverware by hand in Sheffield for close to a century, the works named for the William Wright who came home from Burma into the trade. His youngest son Stephen runs it now and can do every job in the building. A morning on the floor, from the rolling mills and the drop-stamp presses to the plating tanks, the polishing spindles and the dispatch bench - forks, spoons, teapots and trays, a whole Sheffield table made under one roof.
ES-0058 -
The Craft of Bell Founding
Bell founding is the casting and tuning of bells from bronze, an English trade unbroken since the fourteenth century and now held by a handful of foundries - chief among them John Taylor & Co in Loughborough, the last major bell foundry in Britain. How a bell is moulded, cast, and tuned to its five notes by hand, why the craft is on the Heritage Crafts Red List, and who is keeping it alive.
ES-0059 -
Cutlers' Hall
Cutlers' Hall on Church Street is the home of the Company of Cutlers in Hallamshire, the body that has governed the Sheffield metal trades and struck their marks since 1624. A private tour of the Hall - the silver, the painted arms, the Master Cutler nameplate - and the exhibition held under its roof where the archive first met the jeweller Yuyi Cheng.
ES-0060