Crafts and Craftsmen of the Yorkshire Dales

There are many ancient crafts and skills that have continued from past centuries all the way up to the present day. we should appreciate their skills and support them as they are in effect helping save the planet by using sustainable materials and reducing fuel emmissions.

As you already know, we live in a period of mass production and live in a global community. Varied research shows how perhaps between 20 and 40% of all products that we buy for ourselves or our homes come from China, whilst perhaps only 30 or 40% come from the European Union of which we are a part. In addition these products are either made from automated means of mass production or by the advantages of extremely low labour charges such as in the Less Economically Developed Countries of Asia and Africa in particular.

To transport such volumes of products across the face of our planet by air, sea, rail and road is certainly harmful to the planet in terms of gaseous emmissions into the atmoasphere, increasing the Greenhouse Effect, Global Warming and ultimately Climate Change with all the adverse effects that this will bring to life on earth over the coming decades and centuries. So perhaps we should buy locally and keep items longer thus avoiding obsolescence and reducing waste of precious resources.

Many modern products are manufactured from and transported by non-renewable resources, thus depleting the limited resources iof our small planet. It is our responsibility to help save the planet and its resources for future generations - and in a small but positive way we can accomplish this by purchasing hand-crafted products.

Indeed, it is worth considering that these ancient skills of working in natural and sustainable materials with longevity of products, must be retained for the future ready for when coal, oil and gas run out and many man-made materials are too expensive to produce and natural materials regain their importance once again, just as they were until only some 50-100 years ago.

The crafts of the dales included the hand-knitting and weaving of locally produced wool into clothing, the manufacture of hand-made furniture from locally produced sustainable timber, candle-making, basket working, quilting, glass blowing, soap making, pottery, rope-making... and many others.

This website focusses on the hand-knitting of woollen knitwear in the northern Yorkshire Dales of Swaledale, Dentdale and Wensleydale, but information on other crafts can be obtained from local tourist information centres.

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