DIGEST: LONDON CLOTH, RALEIGH, BOOKBINDING, BEER & SPIRITS

Lots of things coming in twos:

Following on from the London Cloth post, here is a beautiful two-parter on the work of SEH Kelly with the one man mill

On the rise and fall of Raleigh, the Nottingham bicycle company (The Bike Show - audio)

Another two-parter: good in-depth article on the boom in British breweries and how gin, wine and whisky are also faring well (Huffington Post)

Bookbinding: At the Wyvern Bindery in Clerkenwell, London and at Shepherds on Rochester Row (Port / Boat Magazine respectively)

and some other odd bits:

Chanel buys Scottish knitwear manufacturer (NYT)

A feature on Marwood, the London based tie company (Style Salvage)

Dove Street Pottery in Yorkshire (OEN)

Not UK based, but interesting to note: Dayjob, a new magazine focusses on the joy of the everyday job (via Protein)

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Image of the London Cloth Company from SEH Kelly

RECENT DIGEST

A nice film on Irish craft from Makers & Brothers

A short article on the London Cloth Company (Hackney Citizen)

On furniture assembly at Ercol

A review of The Trebor Story, a book on the famous sweet company with origins in Stratford (Londonist)

TIM LITTLE AND PATRICK GRANT ON BRITISH CRAFTSMANSHIP

"In the past we’ve talked about moving our manufacturing away from Northampton, but if I was to move the factory to London, not a single person who makes our shoes would come, too. It’s the people who make the factory what it is; they are true craftsmen with years of experience. You can’t afford to lose them and you can’t recreate them, so we’re in Northamptonshire for good."

Tim Little of Grenson

"British people don’t appreciate how great their manufacturing is, unlike people in Japan or Korea, or even Italy and France. We overlook it because we’ve been fed this story that Italian manufacturing is amazing for so long that it’s deeply ingrained in our psyche. The difference is that while the Italians are very good at telling you how good things are, we’re very good at making things but terribly British about not saying how great they are."

Patrick Grant of E. Tautz

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Taken from a recent article in the Evening Standard

Photo of Grenson factory from Tenue de Nimes British Issue