Shopping Cart

Your Cart is currently empty.

Shop

Bridle Leather Belts Bakers of Colyton Leather Belts Billet Strap Belts Lined and Raised Belts Suede Belts Surcingle Belts Watch Straps All Dog Collars Greyhound and Lurcher Collars Half Check Dog Collars Rolled Leather Dog Collars Dog Leads Dog Tags Leathercare Antique Leather Luggage Clearance - Dog Clearance - Belts

Advanced Search





Lost Password?
No account yet? Register
  • Follow equusleather on Twitter


Our Heritage

The English Saddlery trade dates back many centuries, and arguably has produced some of the finest leatherwork and craftsman in the world. At the peak of the trade horses were the primary means of transport and the British Empire produced a bottomless pit of demand for quality leatherwork to go out all over the world. As cars replaced horses and sewing machines were used to overcome the lack of skilled labour lost in the First and Second World Wars so the industry declined in both size and quality of output, and so in may ways does it continue to today. Large parts of the work traditionally carried out by hand and eye by the craftsman have been replaced by giant presses and sewing machines as many of the companies still remaining try to compete with imports from abroad or buy in finished work from abroad and sell it as their own.

In many ways therefore our business is an anachronism whose raw materials, methods of production and corporate culture have more in common with the 19th Century than the 21st. That may sound curious to some perhaps, who are more used to the obvious improvements that technology brings to their everyday lives. We don't reject technology out of a desire to recreate the past or because we don't see its benefits, indeed we are enthusiastic adopters of the internet as you can see. Rather we work in a craft that largely solved its technical problems a century or more ago - modern technology has been used to reduce cost rather than improve quality. As craftspeople we prefer to work to the standards of quality of the craft in its heyday than try to cut costs and corners to compete with those for whom the bottom line is the sole driver and foreign production lines is the way forward .

Buckles

The first and biggest problem in trying to maintain standards is the availability of components and materials of good enough quality. We are very lucky in that many of the patterns of buckles developed down the centuries are still available. We buy our buckles from the last buckle foundry in the UK, who were founded in the mid 19th Century. The buckles you see on our website today are largely either patterns directly from the 19th century, or direct descendants of them. The images below show the buckles we use alongside the corresponding illustration from  a book call "The Equine Album" of c. 1900 for comparison. Once again, we don't use these patterns from a desire to recreate the past or from nostalgia - these are buckles that have had centuries of development work from hundreds of skilled craftsmen. As a consequence they manage to achieve that magic combination of form and function that is so rare, elegant, beautiful curves and lines that are also robust enough to leave to your children and be comfortable in the hand and in use. As you would expect only the best metals are used, solid brass, solid nickle (we are all but the last source of belts with solid nickel buckles in the UK) solid stainless steel and last but not least solid hallmarked Sterling Silver.

Leather

In addition to our buckles and fittings we entirely reliant on a source of quality leather in order to make the prouducts we do. Our tanners are a company you may have heard of  - J & E Sedgwick, a firm founded in 1900 who are known worldwide for the excellence of the leather they produce. We use their bridle leather exclusively, and it is today largely as it would have been 100 years ago. Many of the colours we offer would have been just as familiar to a Victorian or Edwardian audience as a contemporary one. London Tan, for example, is a centuries old colour, as is Australian Nut and Dark Havanna.

Craftmanship

Craftsmanship is the core of our business and is what turns the raw materials in to products worth of their constituent parts. In common with the heritage of our raw materials many of our tools and techniques are identical to those used in the 18th and 19th century. We have a few images below showing 19th century tools illustrated in The Equine Album alongside those that we use everyday