London’s Oldest Violin Shop?
Cathedral builders have a way of claiming the highest, the longest, the greatest volume, or area to make a claim to be the biggest, or at least the biggest at the time of completion, so semantics can go a long way. But as a unique architectural survival built in 1684, John Carr’s violin shop in the Middle […]
Back at West Dean 2018
A high point in every year is my visit to West Dean College to lecture with the Foundation degree in historic craft practices. This is an enormously challenging group of trainee makers, repairers and conservators in a range of disciplines: Musical instrument, clock and furniture making as well as conservation of books, metal objects, […]
Angliae Notita: John Evelyn’s views on instrument making in Restoration London.
In the late seventeenth century, Edward Chamberlayne produced a series of works entitled Angliae Notita: The Present State of England. In his 1683 survey of London he recorded the views of the diarist John Evelyn to construct a unique picture of the musicians and instrument makers working during the reign of Charles II. Benjamin Hebbert investigates. Edward Chamberlayne […]
