Craftland : A Journey Through Britain’s Lost Arts and Vanishing Trades

Britain was once a craft land. For generations what we made with our hands shaped our identities, built our communities and defined our regions. Craftland chronicles the vanishing skills and traditions that used to govern every aspect of life on these shores.

From the Isles of Scilly to the Scottish Highlands, James Fox travels the length of Britain to seek out the country’s last great craftspeople.

Stepping inside the workshops of blacksmiths and wheelwrights, cutlers and coopers, bellfounders and watchmakers, we glimpse not only our past but another way of life: one that is not yet lost and might still shape our future.

For as long as there are humans, there will be craft. It is all around us, hiding in plain sight, animating even the most ordinary things. Fox shows that Britain is still a craft land, if only we have eyes to see it.

Author: Fox, James
United Kingdom, Great Britain
Published on 4 September 2025 by Vintage Publishing (The Bodley Head Ltd) in the United Kingdom.
Hardback | 368 pages
163 x 242 x 39 | 664g