Culture
British leather heritage: Northampton shoes, Walsall saddles and a Devon tannery
A town that shod Parliament's army, a West Midlands saddle capital, a Devon tannery that still uses oak bark and a boot named after its birthday.
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Leather with a British accent
From Northampton boots to Walsall saddles
A town that shod Parliament's army, a West Midlands saddle capital, a Devon tannery still working with oak bark and the boot that took its name from its birthday.
Read the storyDid you know?
In 1642, Parliament ordered 4,000 pairs of shoes and 600 pairs of boots from Northampton shoemakers for the army being sent to Ireland.
The Dr. Martens 1460 boot is named after its launch date: 1 April 1960, at the Griggs factory in Wollaston, Northamptonshire.
Around 1900, nearly a third of Britain's saddlers and harness makers worked in Walsall, in the West Midlands.
J & FJ Baker, in Colyton, Devon, is described as Britain's last traditional oak bark tannery. The family says hides have been tanned on the site since Roman times.
The elastic-sided boot we now call the Chelsea boot was patented in 1851 by J. Sparkes-Hall, a London bootmaker who claimed Queen Victoria walked in them daily.
UK shoe labels must state the main material of the upper, the lining and the sole. The little stretched-hide symbol means leather.
Suede and nubuck look alike, but nubuck is buffed on the outer, grain side of the hide, while suede comes from the inner, flesh side.
An estimated 80 to 90% of the world's leather is tanned with chromium salts rather than vegetable tannins.
Patina, the deep sheen leather gains over the years, comes from light, friction and the natural oils of our hands.