Ancient crafts: feathers, leather and thatch

Start the Week

The farmer James Rebanks recounts a season he spent on a remote Norwegian island learning the ancient trade of caring for wild Eider ducks and gathering their down. In The Place of Tides he tells the story of Anna, a ‘duck woman’ who helped revive this centuries-old tradition. As he traces the rough pattern of her work and her relationship with the wild, Rebanks reassess his own relationship with his Lake District farm, his family and home.

Alice Robinson is a designer who has never shied away from the inescapable link between agriculture and luxury fashion. In Field Fork Fashion she looks back at the origins of her chosen material, leather, and traces the full life of Bullock 374 from farm to abattoir, tannery to cutting table. And in retelling this story she asks whether it’s possible to create a more transparent, traceable and sustainable system.

There are many crafts classified as ‘endangered’ in Britain, but one that has had a renaissance in the last 50 years is the ancient tradition of thatching. Protections put in place by Historic England in the 1970s not only kickstarted a thatching revival, but also helped save heritage crop varieties. Andrew Raffle from the National Thatching Association says the relationship with local farmers is vital for the tradition, and there are an estimated 600-900 thatchers working today.

Producer: Katy Hickman