Artisans of Dartmoor - Book - Page 8
When Sharif started turning in 2008, there was only
one full-time pole-lathe bowl turner in the UK, which
meant the trade was classified as ‘critically endangered’
by Heritage Crafts, a charity dedicated to safeguarding
traditional British skills. “I learnt the basics from an
elderly hobbyist and the rest through trial and error,”
Sharif explains. In 2011, he began teaching, and by
2017, the craft had grown so popular that he helped
found Bowl Gathering, a specialist annual festival in
Abergavenny, Wales.
“There’s been a huge revival in interest in
woodturning since I started,” says Sharif. “I’ve
taught hundreds of people over the years – too many
to count – and now they’re teaching others.” It’s
partly thanks to Sharif ’s willingness to pass on his
hard-won knowledge that, in 2021, pole-lathe turning
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was reclassified by Heritage Crafts from ‘critically
endangered’ to ‘viable’, which means that it is now
being actively preserved and practised. “It’s often said
that money doesn’t grow on trees, but nowadays, it’s
perfectly possible to have a career in woodwork.”
Sharif ’s workshop, with its weathered doors,
traditional owl windows, and tumbledown cob walls,
is an old granite threshing barn on a working livestock
farm near the idyllic 13th-century thatched village of
North Bovey. He often shares the space with furred
and feathered farm residents, including sheepdogs,
bats, barn owls and feral kittens that curl up in
the warmth of his wood-shaving piles. In summer,
swallows raise their young in the eaves, and when
Sharif forgets to board up a hole in the wall of his
barn, curious calves from an adjoining field poke their
The Woodturner • Sharif Adams
