Book Review: Craftland - A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts & Vanishing Trades

by James Fox (Penguin Audio, 2025)

I spend a lot of time working quietly with my hands, and find that a good audiobook or podcast can be an excellent accompaniment to the hours spent at the spinning wheel or weaving loom. It’s a real opportunity to keep learning and be curious about the world beyond our doorstep, and my current audiobook choice is testament to this. I’ve just been listening to an unexpectedly fascinating description of Britain’s last working bell foundry in Loughborough, courtesy of James Fox’s brilliant book, Craftland.

After a gentle introduction, each chapter of the book focuses on a different traditional craft, many ‘endangered’ in being practiced by only a small number of skilled workers, and each tied to a particularly important location. From dry stone wallers in West Yorkshire to scissor makers in Sheffield, each chapter is a beautiful account of the skills and knowledge of the people involved, often accumulated over hundreds of years of tradition and experience passed down the generations. Fox writes about each quite lyrically, but without too much sentimentality - these crafts are physically, mentally and emotionally demanding, and it would be wrong to present them as anything other than that.

It’s an educational read too - I now finally understand what is meant by ‘veg tan leather’ and what really defines a Windsor chair.

More importantly though, Fox’s observations resonate so much with what we believe here at the schoolhouse about the importance of maintaining traditional crafts and the benefits of making by hand. In his Introduction, he writes that a handcrafted item

“bears the indexical residue of a particular moment in time, when a human being put

something into the world that didn’t exist before and couldn’t exist anywhere else. To

hold it in your hands is to converse with its maker, who moments, months or maybe

even centuries earlier, wove, moulded or carved those same surfaces.”

When I make a handspun, handwoven scarf, every fibre has passed through my fingers several times,  the placement of each thread has been carefully considered and adjusted and after about 25 hours of careful attention, results in something both functional and beautiful that will never be reproduced exactly the same way ever again.

Fox also points out how craft has been intrinsic and essential in our cultural development - from our surnames of Smith and Cooper through to street names, football team nicknames and commonly used idioms. He isn’t exaggerating too much when he says that “the history of craft isn’t just the history of making, it’s the history of everything.”

If you are looking for a non-fiction read that is still woven from beautiful stories, I’d highly recommend ‘Craftland’. The audiobook is a delightful listen, with reasonable-length episodic chapters and the author’s own very listenable voice as narration. The book itself would make a lovely gift for those interested in crafts, history, local traditions and British culture, or for those who truly value handmade goods and the skill of the artisan.