Made from a very special English Leather, supplied by England’s last remaining traditional Oak Bark Tannery. 9-10oz finest English full grain oak bark leather. This leather undergoes a labour intensive, traditional 12 month tanning process to produce a truly outstanding leather. This results in a very strong, yet lightweight leather.
Oak Bark leather is finished by hand with a unique blend of oils and greases that allow the true natural characteristics and colour of the leather to be highlighted. As a result, this leather will show some variation in colour, which is naturally occurring and adds to the unique beauty of each wallet.
The surface also has a ‘full grain’ finish and, as a result some natural creasing and marking of the hide may be visible on the surface of your wallet, which is a natural characteristic of the leather.
The journey starts with English oak bark, ground down by a water wheel, which is fed by a local river at the tannery. This is then soaked in water to draw out the natural tannin which forms the base of the tanning liquor.
Hides are then soaked in pits for 2-3 weeks to aid removal of the hair, this part of the process ensures the leather retains its fibre strength, and has been done this way for centuries. They are then cleaned by hand and washed before being suspended on wooden ‘sticks’ and suspended in the tanning pits, in the oak bark liquor for 9 months.
The hides are then layered in the pits with oak bark chippings inbetween them for a further 3 months and then shaved to a level thickness. Fish oil is applied and the hides are dipped in greases, and then ‘set’ by hand. The setting process is highly skilled and involves using traditional tools to push the leather grain out to achieve a flat, workable surface.
The final stage is staining the leather to the required colour by hand, and then conditioning with dubbin wax to produce a stunning quality leather.