Boats
Building
Cutlery
Fabric work
Furniture making
Glasswork
Leather work
Metal work
Stone work
Woodwork
Miscellaneous
Basket maker
Jet carver
Ropemaker
Basket making is one of the oldest crafts in existence
and there is a direct continuity stretching back over the centuries
to earlier primitive communities where baskets were essential to survival.
 |
John Taylor of Ulleskelf North Yorkshire makes a basket
from willow grown on the family's land nearby. |
Said to be the oldest industry in that part of the North
York Moors, jet working was active in the Bronze age and continued through
the Roman occupation into the middle ages. Queen Victoria is usually
given the credit for turning jet into a fashion craze after introducing
it to her court, and after Prince Albert died in 1861 jet ornaments
were worn as a token of the nation's mourning.
 |
Roy Jay, a craftsman apprenticed in a long tradition
carves jet jewellery in his workshop above church street in Old
Whitby. |
Small fibre rope-making businesses were as closely in
touch with the needs of farmers as rope makers in ports were with those
of a shipping or fishing industry still largely powered by sail.
 |
Changing patterns of demand as well as the growth
of larger rope-making companies and the introduction of new, man-made
materials into the industry in place of traditional natural fibres
hastened the disappearance of the small country rope maker. |
 |
You only have to notice the number of streets or
lanes in towns and villages with names like The Ropewalk, Rope Street
or Rope maker Street to realise the former extent of this traditional
craft industry. |