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The last workshop of the Guild
Four generations of silversmiths in the Old Silk Mill at Chipping Campden - the only workshop of Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft still working.
In 1902 C. R. Ashbee moved his Guild of Handicraft from the East End of London to a silk mill in Chipping Campden, a whole social experiment transplanted to the Cotswolds. The Guild dissolved within six years - but one workshop never closed. Hart Gold & Silversmiths is still on the first floor of that mill, still raising silver by hand, four generations on. This thread walks from the morning in the workshop to the two men who hold its line today - David, eighty-eight and seventy years at the bench, and his son William, who came to the silver from computer science - and out into the town the archive is documenting in full.
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A Morning at Hart Silversmiths
A working morning at Hart Gold & Silversmiths in Chipping Campden - the last surviving workshop of Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft, in the Old Silk Mill since 1902. With David Hart, eighty-eight and seventy years at the bench this July, and his son William, who came to silver from computer science.
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David Hart, Silversmith
Third-generation silversmith at Hart Gold & Silversmiths in the Old Silk Mill, Chipping Campden - the last working workshop of Ashbee's Guild of Handicraft. Grandson of George Hart, who came to Campden with the Guild in 1902; brought into the workshop by his father Henry in 1956. Eighty-eight at the time of the visit, and seventy years at the bench this July, still raising silver by hand.
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William Hart, Silversmith
Fourth-generation silversmith at Hart Gold & Silversmiths in the Old Silk Mill, Chipping Campden. Son of David Hart, great-grandson of George Hart of the Guild of Handicraft. Came to the bench from computer science, joining the workshop in 1990, the year his grandfather Henry died, and now carries the workshop forward.
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Chipping Campden
A Cotswold wool town of honey-coloured stone, and the home, since 1902, of the last working workshop of the Arts and Crafts movement - Hart's, in the Old Silk Mill.
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