2024
In 1908 in a busy corner of Sheep Street, Chipping Campden, the Guild of Handicraft’s printing press on the ground floor of the Silk Mill was put into action. C. R. Ashbee’s Craftsmanship in Competitive Industry, a staunch defence and celebration of the value of handmade craft, was to be published by the Essex House Press. This book, along with a large collection of other Essex House Press titles, is now carefully stored in the Court Barn archive. Its determined vision of communities giving makers ‘the opportunity’ to make ‘contact with material[s]’ which enable them to make things ‘with their hands’ speaks to the work being carried out by organisations such as the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust and Heritage Crafts today.
Heritage Crafts’ Red List of Endangered Crafts captured national media attention in 2022 when crafts such as cricket ball making were declared extinct in the UK, while over 60 other crafts including copper-smithing and diamond cutting were listed as critically endangered in 2023. Ashbee would probably feel rather despondent that parchment and vellum making is now also critically endangered: Essex House Press books are made from a traditionally-made, high-quality parchment.
Court Barn, however, celebrates many of the crafts which are now on the brink of extinction. In autumn 2022, the museum showcased shoemaking and millinery from Caroline Groves and Louise Pocock. Heritage Crafts listed hat block making as critically endangered, while hat making as a whole was recently moved off the list of ‘viable’ crafts. Louise Pocock’s work and passion for hat wearing and styling nonetheless shows that there is still reason for hope and she remains an active member of the Gloucestershire Guild of Craftsmen.
Most cheeringly, crafts for which Chipping Campden and our surrounding area is most famous (silversmithing, furniture making, stained glass making, studio pottery and thatching) are all listed by Heritage Crafts as currently viable, meaning they have sufficient craftspeople to transmit their craft skills to the next generation. Not only does Court Barn exhibit many of these crafts, but the museum has recently undertaken a new makers’ support scheme funded by an art, music and craft charity, The Radcliffe Trust. The Craft Partnership Scheme will enable early-mid career makers from Gloucestershire and surrounding areas to work with a member of the Gloucestershire Guild to develop their skills, knowledge and experience.
Perceptions of the practice of craft have also changed since Ashbee emphasised the tactile ‘contact with materials’, with makers such as Gordon Russell and Robert Welch, including machine making as part of their Arts and Crafts-inspired work. New technology has also brought some crafts to the fore: a recent social media post shared by Heritage Crafts received more than 3 million views as it celebrated the role of textile crafts in the making of space satellite materials!
