Artisans of Dartmoor - Book - Page 21
T H E H I D E TA N N E R
Salvaging skins from culled animals, Jessie Watson Brown creates
ethical leather goods using ancient tanning techniques
W
hen Jessie Watson Brown was 28, she
spent six months in Washington’s Cascade
mountains on an immersive Stone Age skills course.
There, she learnt primitive survival techniques
including basketry, foraging, hunting, fishing,
clothes-making and hide tanning. To hone her new
skills, she then spent a month in the wilderness
with her fellow students, living off the land. “It
was wonderful to escape from everything modern
and immerse myself completely and deeply in the
natural world,” she says.
When she returned home to Dartmoor with the
handmade leather clothing she had grown used to
wearing, she was inundated with requests – from
friends, and friends of friends – asking her to teach
them how to tan hides the old way. “Dartmoor is
full of practical, earthy people, so anything that
combines craft and nature, as hide tanning does, has
a wide appeal,” says Jessie who, before leaving for
the US, worked as a teacher at an outdoor education
centre near Exeter.
Ten years on, Jessie runs a thriving micro-tannery
near Moretonhampstead, selling salvaged skins
and furs that she processes entirely by hand. Her
methods are inspired by the skills she learnt in the
US, as well as the ancient Scandinavian techniques
she has subsequently studied in Norway. “I had
to learn how to tan from other cultures because
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