The Haud
Makers, crafts and the things worth keeping.
Stories by Rosie ThompsonClear filter ×
The Lord Mayor's gilded State Coach of 1757, tar barrels in Ottery St Mary and Hatherleigh, and St Clement's Day at the last water-powered forge in England: three November outings where a Red List craft is the reason to go.
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How commissioning a handmade piece works on The Haud: who to ask, what it costs, how long it takes and how payment and refunds work.
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The Bayeux Tapestry is sold out until January. Nine medieval gifts made by hand in Britain instead, from inlaid tiles to ballad prints, £12 to £320.
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Inlaid floor tiles, leaded stained glass, hand-set letterpress, oak swills and corn dollies: the medieval and folk crafts still made by hand in Britain.
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Presents for the person who has everything: one-off pieces and endangered crafts, each made by hand in Britain, that they cannot already own.
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Claire Broad hand cuts marquetry and makes boxes and furniture in Staffordshire. How she works, and how to commission a piece from her.
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How to look after carved, inlaid, turned and bent wood once the central heating comes on, with care notes from the makers who made it.
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Nine presents made in Britain to last a lifetime: an oak swill basket, a quilt, a carved box, a wooden ring and more, each made by one person.
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Bethan Hughes Jones makes inlaid porcelain tiles in Cardiff, a medieval technique Heritage Crafts lists as critically endangered.
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Three October dates where a Red List craft is the reason to go: hand-painted rides at Yarm and Hull, and heavy horse collars at the National Ploughing Championships.
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Mary Corkery has painted, fired and leaded stained glass in her Harrow shed for 30 years. The craft came to Britain in 674 and is now Endangered.
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I like beautiful things that get used. Here is what I found when I tried to work out whether that's a position or just a preference, and what it means for The Haud.
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The second half of the Christmas list is the long one. Nine presents under fifty pounds, each from a different maker, for the people who would notice.
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The first of a monthly diary about running The Haud. This one is about the makers who have said yes but not yet opened their shops, and what I can and can't do about it.
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September is when everyone moves. Nine things made by hand that will do more for a rented flat than twenty cheap ones bought in one afternoon.
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The antlers at Abbots Bromley are older than the Norman Conquest and the skill that mounted them is on the Red List. Eight customs for September, from Braemar to the Cotswolds.
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This one is late, and August has already taken one of its strangest days off the board. On the seventh the Burryman walked South Queensferry, nine hours of it, a man encased head to foot in thousands of burdock burrs with two attendants holding his arms out from his sides. He went a week earlier than usual this year to fit the school holidays. If you missed him, you missed him.
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I once drove 400 miles for a basket. Not just any basket. It was made by Simon, one of the few people left who still works his particular tradition of basketry, the kind of skill that lives in a person's hands and takes years to learn. I filmed the trip, put it online, and a surprising number of people watched a woman explain why a single basket was worth 4 trains and 9 hours of travel. That trip is really where The Haud started.
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If June is thin for old customs, July more than makes up for it. The whole country seems to come outdoors at once: rushes carried into churches, a parliament held on a hillside, a sheep roasted at the edge of a cricket pitch. I have picked three.
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June is supposed to be a quiet month for old customs. The May lot have packed away their hobby horses, and the harvest ones are still weeks off. And yet there are three things happening this month that I would happily cross the country for, all of them kept alive by people who decided a tradition was worth the trouble.
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