Craftland: A Journey Through Britain's Lost Arts & Vanishing Trades

by James Fox

Genres: History, Non-fiction
Pages: 360
Rating:

Synopsis:

Britain has always been a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands defined our identities, built our communities and shaped our regions. Craftland chronicles the vanishing skills and traditions that once governed every aspect of life on these shores.

Travelling the length of Britain, from the Scilly Isles to the Scottish Highlands, James Fox seeks out the country’s last remaining master craftspeople. Stepping inside the workshops of blacksmiths and wheelwrights, cutlers and coopers, bell-founders and watchmakers, we glimpse not only our past but another way of life — one that is not yet lost and whose wisdom could shape our future.

For as long as there are humans, there will be craft. It is all around us, hiding in plain sight, enriching even the most modest things. And in this increasingly digital age, it is perhaps more valuable than ever. Craftland is a celebration of that deeply necessary connection between our creative instincts and the material world we inhabit, revealing a richer and more connected way of living.

James Fox’s Craftland is a celebration of the “crafts” we’re losing in Britain — wheelwrighting, stone wall laying, watchmaking, etc. He speaks elegaically, referring to people as craftsmen even when they dislike that term for themselves (which he notes almost in the same paragraph as referring to it as a craft). I think in some cases he’s creating a virtue out of something that people just feel should be kept alive for their own reasons, and that they may not all be comfortable with how they’re portrayed here, based on his own words about them.

That said, it’s still interesting, especially when he goes into the details of how things are done, and how the traditional methods might help reduce the use of plastic and move toward more sustainable systems, e.g. in fishing. That sort of thing could well be important in returning to something like a sustainable fishing industry.

I wasn’t quite sure about some of his claims, though, e.g. re: watchmaking and saying the man he talked to was one of the last two watchmakers in Britain. I read Rebecca Struthers’ The Hands of Time not that long ago (and it’s an excellent and not obscure book), and she and her partner are both watchmakers (though often working on repairing watches). Maybe he meant that they came out of nowhere and magically taught themselves — I don’t remember the details well enough to be sure they didn’t just appear from nowhere after the point where he says the master and apprentice he writes about were the only two watchmakers in the British Isles. Still, it doesn’t quite suit his narrative of experts literally dying as he lines up interviews with them, and leaves me with some questions.

As far as his sources go, a lot of it is “because I went and saw it myself, so there’s no source but my say-so”, but there are numbered footnotes, sparser in some chapters than others.

A decent celebration of the historically necessary and vital work people have done, haunted by a few questions for me, overall.

Rating: 4/5 (“really liked it”)