Digest
July 2026
5 entries added in July 2026 - 2subjects - 3essays .
Permalink: /digest/2026-07
Subjects documented
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Haydn Hill, Gunmaker
Haydn Hill is a Birmingham gunmaker who works by hand and on old machines in the traditional setting-up trade of action filing - the hand-fitting of a gun's action so that barrels, body and lockwork close as one piece. He works at the Jesse Hill workshop in Stirchley, named for the forebear whose name is still on the wall, in a family that has filed gun actions in Birmingham for generations, and is one of very few still doing the work this way.
MK-0039 -
Léo Lambert, Engraver
Léo Lambert is the master engraver at Westley Richards in Birmingham. He came from a village outside Liège, trained in engraving at the Léon Mignon School there, and wrote to the firm from Belgium; he arrived expecting to apprentice under a master and was told he was the one. He taught himself the lettering he had skipped, designed the firm's own lettering styles, and now runs its in-house engraving studio - the cutting, the gold inlay and the design work behind the finished best guns.
MK-0040
Essays
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A Morning at Westley Richards
Westley Richards has built best guns and rifles in Birmingham since 1812, under royal warrants that run back to Queen Victoria. A morning inside the Pritchett Street manufactory - the sporting-luxury showroom, the strongroom of racked guns, the big-game and safari heritage the firm still carries - and up the stairs to the one craftsman I was able to document, the engraver Leo Lambert.
ES-0061 -
Cut in Steel and Gold
English gun engraving - the hand-cutting of scroll, game scenes, borders and lettering into the metal of a best gun, and the inlaying of gold into the cuts. What the craft is, the tradition it comes out of, the small number who still practise it, and the state of it in 2026, documented at the Westley Richards engraving studio with Léo Lambert.
ES-0062 -
A Best Gun, By Hand
How a best gun is made by hand: the specialist trades of the old Birmingham gun quarter, the setting-up trade that fits the parts into one working gun, and action filing at its heart. What the craft is, the tradition, the few who still work it, and the state of it in 2026, documented with the Birmingham action filer Haydn Hill.
ES-0063