Bed linen
Royal Warrant-holder Peter Reed has been making bed linen in Nelson, Lancashire, since 1861. The firm continues to make luxurious and long-lasting sheets, pillowcases and duvet covers to order today, stitching every single hem by hand, with an extensive range of ways to personalise its designs, including embroidered monograms, family crests, individual designs and its signature corded finish in special colours. It is also able to accommodate unusual sizes and linen with cut-out corners for four-poster beds. As proof that it is moving with the times, the firm is introducing a new range of certified organic cotton percale and cotton sateen, so that you can sleep comfortably in the knowledge that no harmful pesticides were used in the making of your bed sheets.
01282 616069; www.peterreed.com
Bird box
Simon and Helen Lindley, founders of Lindleywood, had made a few brightly coloured, but otherwise ‘ordinary’ bird boxes to give as presents, when a friend encouraged them to try making some with creative shapes. A wedding-chapel bird box, a camper-van and a Tudor house soon came to life and, with them, the business. Fourteen years later, their boxes come in dozens of shapes, from a Victorian house to a narrowboat, rugby clubhouse and even a chunk of cheese with resident mouse. All are handmade (from sustainable Scots pine hand painted with wildlife-safe Little Greene paints) in Lindleywood’s Lincolnshire workshop overlooking open fields, which are often a source of inspiration. Most boxes can be personalised and the company offers a bespoke service for those who would like to see their own ideas come to life.
01476 560707; www.lindleywood.co.uk
Blue cheese
Britain’s answer to Gorgonzola dates back to 1847, when an enterprising young man opened A. Mathews and Skailes to supply Londoners with cheese, eggs and butter. In the 1940s, a relative, Frank Skailes, branched out into cheesemaking, founding the Somerset Creameries and later acquiring the Cropwell Bishop Creamery in the eponymous Nottinghamshire village. The business, which by 2005 was known only as the Cropwell Bishop Creamery, has remained true to traditional methods, making award-winning Stilton from milk sourced from nine local, family-owned farms. Next, the company began developing a new, soft, creamy blue cheese combining Continental influences with British milk. It took a few years to refine the recipe, but it was worth it: Beauvale proved a resounding success. Launched in 2011 and initially only supplied in limited amounts, it has won numerous awards, including, in 2018, overall Best British product at the Great Taste Awards and a gold medal in the 2018–2019 World Cheese Awards. Cropwell Bishop is still run by the Skailes family.
0115–989 2350; www.cropwellbishopstilton.co.uk
Briefcase
In 1750, the entrepreneur John Ross, a former captain in the army of George II, opened a shop making carriage-driving whips in Piccadilly. Nearly 50 years later, the business was bought by James Swaine and earned a sequence of Royal Warrants and awards —including a medal at the Great Exhibition in 1851—as the company started making hunting and riding accessories. Swaine spotted the opportunity provided by the motorcar and branched out into luggage; they would soon become a favourite with Aston Martin owners.
In 1943, Swaine merged with Brigg, one of the world’s oldest umbrella manufacturers, soon followed by the addition of hat-maker Herbert Johnson, supplier of Indiana Jones’s headgear in the 1980s film trilogy. By then, however, Swaine had already made a foray on the silver screen: in From Russia with Love, Bond sports a black leather briefcase with red skiver lining, stuffed with ammunition, golden coins, flat knives and a folding rifle, which he uses to great effect against villains on the Orient Express (the Bond attaché is still available to buy from Swaine, minus weapons). Many of the brand’s cases become family heirlooms—with help from Swaine’s restoration services.
020–7409 7277; www.swaine.london
Broom
Millions of people have seen a Nash broom in action—they simply don’t know it. This Hampshire-based family business supplied the broomsticks used in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire and the brooms also appeared in Deep Shadows starring Johnny Depp. But film glory is as nothing compared with the honour of having been the royal broomsquire for decades, keeping the Royal Household provisioned with besoms and pea sticks.
The Nash family has been making brooms for more than 300 years. Each individual broom is a labour of love: birch is gathered in winter and seasoned before the twigs are rolled together and bound with wire to form the broom’s head, which is then attached to the hand-shaped hazel or birch handle.
The entire process is done by hand and, because of the seasoning, takes about a year.
0118–981 5591; www.besombrooms.com
Brush
Established more than 60 years ago, A. S. Handover makes professional-quality brushes at its workshops in London and in Welwyn Garden City. Each one is made by hand, with machines used only to crimp the metal ferrules at the bottom of the wooden handle and to stamp the company name. Hair material has expanded from hog bristle, pony and squirrel hair to embrace high-quality synthetics, ensuring each brush meets its specific application: The company makes everything from fine-art, make-up and decorating brushes to specialist gilding, sign-writing and pin-striping products. Unsurprisingly, it counts craftsmen from several museums, country houses and the Royal Household among its customers.
020–3772 0132; www.handover.co.uk
Hair material has expanded from hog bristle and squirrel hair to synthetics
Butter
A stint at Swedish restaurant Fäviken proved a revelation for Grant Harrison, then a chef and now the founder of Ampersand Dairy. ‘I tried the butter on my first day on the job and literally did a double take—the flavour blew me away,’ he writes in Bread & Butter: History, Culture, Recipes, which was co-authored with Richard Snapes. Mr Harrison took time to study Sweden’s butter culture, but the catalyst was his brother’s wedding, where he made a sundried-tomato butter and a cultured, salted one, which proved a hit. Ampersand is a cultured butter made of Jersey and Guernsey milk fermented with bacteria (which gives it that extra ‘butteriness’) and batch-produced in a French churn before being sprinkled with pink Himalayan sea salt. It won over first local gastropubs, then some of Britain’s most exacting chefs, from Raymond Blanc to Gordon Ramsay. It features in scores of top restaurants and is available from independent delis across the country.
07885 423090; www.ampersanddairy.com
Cashmere scarf
In 1797, Alexander Johnston set up a mill in Elgin, on the banks of the Lossie. Within a decade, Johnstons of Elgin had become one of
