Artisans of Dartmoor - Book - Page 23
traditional British techniques were largely lost during
industrialisation,” she says.
Her product range includes clothes, bags, rugs, and
bone and antler jewellery, along with bespoke rawhide
drumskins for the moor’s shaman community, and furs and
leathers for other makers. She is also a regular guest teacher
on survival courses, and runs her own workshops in which
she teaches, among other things, tanning and deer folklore.
Intent on avoiding the health, environmental and
animal welfare issues surrounding the chemical leather
industry, Jessie repurposes hides that would otherwise
go to waste. She uses roadkill, the skins of animals culled
for local woodland regeneration schemes (mostly deer
and rabbits), and redundant fish, which she collects from
Plymouth docks. “I’m making use of things that would
otherwise be disposed of,” says Jessie. “If I didn’t use
these skins, they’d be incinerated, which has a negative
environmental impact. I’m very frugal, so making a living
from turning waste into something beautiful, durable and
valuable is a dream.”
To keep her methods completely natural and faithful to
ancient techniques, Jessie tans her skins using tree bark,
which she strips from newly felled Dartmoor oak or spruce
trees and then boils to extract the tannins. An extremely
labour-intensive and time-consuming process, oak-bark
tanning is practised by only a handful of people in the UK
and is currently classed as a ‘critically endangered’ trade by
Heritage Crafts.
If you’re squeamish look away now – Jessie also uses
deer brains for tanning, a grisly process that requires
whisking them to a pulp, then boiling them to make
an oily ‘brain tea’. While bark tanning results in thick,
water-resistant leather for shoes, belts and furniture, brain
tanning produces soft, flexible leather suitable for clothing.
Both methods transform animal skins into a useable,
preserved state.
TOP: Hides from common fallow deer,
which are humanely shot as part of local
reforestation projects.
BOTTOM: A vintage tool which Jessie uses to
push soaking solution out of hides.
OPPOSITE PAGE: Jessie stretches and softens
a red deer skin over the warmth of a firepit at
her workshop.
The Hide Tanner • Jessie Watson Brown
23
