Craftland

Britain has always been a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands defined our families, communities and regions. ‘Craftland’ brings to life the vanishing skills, traditions and trades that shaped the fabric and governed the rhythms of everyday life in Britain for hundreds of years. Through the stories of often humble-seeming objects of exquisite beauty, precision, utility and meaning, it shows how craft connects us to the land, emerging from local natural materials, and is the material expression of our regional identities and cultures. And through encounters with some of the last remaining master craftspeople at work today – weavers and wheelwrights, coopers and coppice-workers, boat-builders and bell-founders, silversmiths and watch-makers – we glimpse not only our past but another way of life, one that is not yet lost and whose wisdom could yet shape our future.