Britain is a country of crafts. From Cornish hedging to Sussex trug making, Scottish kiltmaking to the Stokes potteries, the UK, steeped in local knowledge and centuries of handed-down wisdom, is home to some of the rarest and most prized crafts in the world.
Yet, many of these skills are in danger of dying out, currently possessed by people unable to share their knowledge with new generations. With 259 endangered and critically endangered crafts on the Heritage Craft Association's Red List, and with skilled professions including cricket ball making, gold beating, and mouth-blown flat glass making now listed as extinct, failing to appreciate and nurture these crafts is threatening them with becoming lost forever.
In Made in Britain, Jay Blades - presenter of The Repair Shop, passionate advocate of heritage crafts and co-chair of Heritage Crafts - joins forces with leading country journalist Charlotte Reather to travel to all corners of the UK to shine a light on ten key British heritage crafts. On the way, they tell the stories of the makers and apprentices fighting to keep them alive, and hope to bring one craft, the lost and peculiarly British art of cricket ball making, back from extinction.
Plate section photography by: Charles Sainsbury-Plaice
Cover illustration by: Andrew Jamieson, artist whose work featured on the Coronation invitation for King Charles III and Queen Camilla
- ISBN10 1804192465
- ISBN13 9781804192467
- Publish Date 10 October 2024
- Publish Status Forthcoming
- Publish Country GB
- Imprint Octopus Publishing Group
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 320
- Language English