I'm trying to think of unique British industry/craftsman, which are run by the individual.
I'm thinking people who hand make bicycles (its a little bit obvious though), the chappy in Cambridge who still traps eels by hand. The more quaint the better.
Can anyone think of anyone?
Hedge laying.
Thatchers (roofing variety)
dry stone wallers?
Those people that hand paint billboards/adverts. Not many of them about
Thatching.
Kiltmakers? Bagpipe makers? Tweed?
Asset-stripping care homes?
Or collecting reed for thatching...
[url= http://www.norfolkreed.co.uk/ ]The Norfolk Reed Cutters Association[/url]
tarmac driveways ......
Pub sign painters/artists
Parquet Flooring 🙂
Dogging.?
I'm thinking people who hand make bicycles (its a little bit obvious though), the chappy in Cambridge who still traps eels by hand.
Sorry to be a pain but he's from Ely, not Cambridge.
Being Simon Cowell.
Mars bar fryer
Beremeal miller
Freelance librarian
Provider of fake Burberry
Thanks to everyone apart from Mr. Woppit and BigbutSlimmerbloke. Every thread on here seems to turn into a kind of novelty blackadder episode at the moment.
The guy I get my custom bass strings from, Malcolm Newton @
[url] http://www.newtonestrings.com/about.htm [/url]
bell founding? Not many bell founders left in England - run by a master founder
A Cooper.
Making barrels that is, not telling jokes.
Morris Dancing supplies!
Church roof lead-ers?
Putting the hole into the middle of stotties.
Actually, beremeal miller is such a unique craft there's only one that I know of, on a fairly remote scottish island, milling a grain only produced on that island, and milling it in a mill powered by a waterwheel.
I must have misunderstood your use of the terms "unique", "individual" and "quaint"
wheelsmith?
+1 for Bere meal miller. I surprised that anyone other than an Orcadian whould have heard of one. Nicher that a dusty niche thing.
http://www.birsay.org.uk/baronymill.htm
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Custom pickups for electric guitars.
A friend had his replaced by some chap near him that does the pickup's for some famous guitarist*. He said it transformed the sound.
*He did tell me who it was, but it was one of these new bands and I can't keep track of the names.
troutie 🙂
The monks that make Buckfast
mcmoonter - ..and I had porridge from the Barony Mill for breakfast.
i've also dived Scapa Flow, got a jumper made of North Ron wool and a certificate from the papay-westray flight.
Manufacture of cunning plans...
Trains. That don't run on time.
Shrimp Potters
BigButSlimmerBloke you are almost an Orcadian. Have you collected spoots or cut peat?
I lived in Orkney for 12 years. I knew Ray the miller.
Back to the OT, stone slate fencing.
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more Scottish than British...
... Irn-Bru (rusty trout water) "Brewers?"
[url= http://www.thepotteries.org/bottle_kiln/saggar.htm ]Sagger maker's bottom knocker[/url]
kevin1911 - Member
Kiltmakers? Bagpipe makers? Tweed?
The Spanish have bagpipes, too. Kiltmakers is probably be British only, though.
Brewing real beer
stone slate fencing.
pshaw - as a near-Orcadian you'll be familiar with stone slate roofing
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Coracle manufacturer?
Coracle maker
Unique [i]in[/i] Britain or unique [i]to[/i] Britain, as in you wouldn't find anyone doing it anywhere else in the world?
The Beremeal mentioned above is the best example of that so far.
I think there's only one company left in the UK making steam boilers.
Handmade bicycles doesn't really count - [b]all[/b] bicycles are handmade, they're just not all handmade by white people.
Theres a whistle manufactures in Brum called Acme (yes really) that makes everything from policemans whistles to the whistles that sank on the titanic. Some friends of mine made the Acme Meteor with them, a 6ft impeller driven whistle designed to be dropped out of a plane from 10,000 ft, piloted by a skydiver and as it decends be the world's loudest whistle
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Back to Orkney and I think there was a guy making compact Cellos that were easier and cheaper for musicians to travel with
I worked with Blast Design last year, not unique in the fact that they work with explosives, but remarkable in the number of different ways in which they work with them.
Not really craft/artisan, but unique [i]in[/i] britain rather than to Britain would perhaps be Air Salvage International, worked with them last year too. Bizzarely they're based in the back corner of garden centre.
We've got a TV repairman down in the village, some of the TVs he works on are as old as television pretty much, and his shop window has a better collection than I've seen in many museums. His name is Baird too, appropriately.
Whippet fettling?
Crossbeam-treddle skewing?
Actually - the only curling stone factory in the world is just up the road in Mauchline too
ctually - [b]the only curling stone factory in the world[/b] is just up the road in Mauchline too
Aye?
http://www.canadacurlingstone.on.ca/new_stones.php
