My wife, Katie, and I were farmers without a farm for 10 years managing our cattle and sheep by conservation grazing for wildlife organizations and private landowners over the winter and then regeneratively grazing, often for estates, the rest of the year. While it is incredibly satisfying to see the impact our grazing was having on some stunning calcareous meadows in The Cotswolds it was incredibly hard work moving livestock around regularly as well as travelling up to 40 minutes to check them.
Then in November 2022 we found ourselves in the position of being able to buy a small farm in Wiltshire. One thing that came with the farm was a lot of barn space. We have never had the use of barns before and the livestock all out winter so have never needed it. We quickly managed to fill a couple of barns with kit we had collected over the years but still had a lot of space left.
We tossed around a few ideas of how to utilise the barns to generate some revenue and to make use of them. One day out of the blue I said to Katie that I would love to make leather on the farm. The response of “Go on then” was all I needed to start my journey.
The first step of the journey was to find out if it was viable, could I actually tan leather on the farm? After all I had never made leather before and had no idea how it was done.
I tackled this from two directions. The first was to attend a three online Zoom tanning workshops run by Matt Richards (@traditional_tanners). Matt has been tanning skins and hides for decades and, as I was to find out, has a huge knowledge of how to produce leather. All the materials you need for the workshops are posted out to you and over the first series of Zoom sessions you step through the process to produce two high-quality samples on veg tanned leather, one with oak bark and the other mimosa. The other two courses you produce hair on hides and look at how you can manipulate the tanning process to produce dense and soft leather. For more detail about these courses see Katy Warriner’s blog post (The Art and Science of Leather Tanning: A Journey of Learning and Tradition).
These courses showed me it was possible to make leather, but I needed to dive into a lot more detail about the viability of setting up a tannery on the farm. This is where the SW Fibreshed Bursary came into its own. With the support of the bursary, I was able to run a two-day feasibility workshop on the farm with a UK leather and tannery expert, Karl Flower, and some other additional leather experts, including Katy Warriner.
The first day of the workshop was focused on the process of producing leather, stepping through each individual step:
This has since been evolved, particularly around the finishing steps of producing leather.
Through these steps you move the hide up and down the pH scale to help the process of tannin. Hides swell at low and high pH which is why lime is used in the de-hairing process as the swelling at pH 12.5 makes the hide grip less tightly to the hair follicles making it easier to de-hair.
The second day we finished off the process steps and then focused on the business side of producing leather brainstorming:
These invaluable days validated that building a tannery on the farm was not only possible, but we believed there was a high demand for a micro-tannery for creating fully traceable leather including returning back to farmers.
The workshop gave me confidence to apply for a Churchill Fellowship Travel Scholarship to support me in building the tannery, to which I was lucky enough to be successful. The Churchill Fellowship every year funds successful applicants to spend between 6 and 8 weeks travelling abroad to support “individual UK citizens to follow their passion for change, through learning from the world and bringing that knowledge back to the UK”.
In March 2024 I spent 3 weeks as in intern at Matt Richard’s tannery in Oregon. This was a game changing experience. Matt’s tannery is exactly what I am looking to do on the farm and 3 weeks embedded in the tannery hands on making leather was the confidence builder I needed. Matt had done a lot of preparation for my visit and had bought in cattle hides for us to turn into leather; he mainly does leather from deer or hair on buffalo hides or sheepskins. As the tanning process takes longer than 3 weeks, he had taken half of the hides through the first half of the process steps to pre-tanning so we could do the second half of the process alongside the first half for the rest of the hides.
The internship was very hands on, day two I was fleshing hides in a fleshing machine and by the end of the 3 weeks I had my first cattle leather to take home.
No idea sits still. I started the journey wanting to set up a tannery to make leather from cattle hides as we couldn’t get leather back from our cows. While this is still an objective it has become more than that.
The tannery will be set up as a not-for-profit company and will focus on three objectives:
Since the SWE Fibreshed Bursary award, I have made good progress on the design of the tannery and am building confidence on producing leather. This has recently been bolstered as I have been generously supported by the British Leather Industry Development Trust who are funding a mentor from the leather industry to support me over the next 3 years. Barry Knight is one of the leading experts on veg tanned leather in the world having worked his way up from the tannery floor to travelling the world as a leather and tannery consultant. Barry has now ‘retired’ but still consults for tanneries around the world and his generosity and support in helping me so far will now continue while I get the tannery up and running.
The focus of my time now is funding to get the tannery built. There are several very expensive machines that are needed to make the tannery viable and there aren’t a lot of them left in this country. With funding support, I will be able to get the tannery built and offer access to these machines to other micro-tanneries and tanners hopefully supporting the industry as faces unprecedented difficulties.
Follow @cotmarshtannery on Instagram (and other social media channels) for updates on the progress of the tannery.
James
We plan to launch a Supporter membership soon. Sign up here to receive updates and news.
We will be launching a Supporter membership shortly. If you are interested in receiving more information on this and other news from our fibreshed, please sign up here.
