Tannery

A Bygones piece on Croggon's Tannery which utilised traditional methods then dying out.

An episode of the Anglia Television series ‘Bygones’ looking at a traditional tannery in Grampound, Cornwall. The film features a mix of footage from the 1930s, some of which is in black and white, and footage from when the documentary was made in 1983. Eddie Anderson reports, in a piece which shows that although methods of tanning had largely changed by the 1980s, the tanners at Croggon's Tannery in Cornwall still used many of the same methods and machinery that had been used for generations. The film begins with footage from the 1930s of men chopping down trees and stripping the bark from them. They were then able to extract the tannin necessary for the tanning process from this bark. The main portion of the film takes the viewer through the Croggon tanning method step-by-step. The film shows the workers of the 1980s carry out each step. Much of the machinery they use is very old – some of it dating back to Victorian times. The tannery is in the hands of William Croggon, who is shown in the film. The reporter mentions how Croggan personally inspects every skin for quality control. At the end of the film, William Croggon and his brother are shown training their own sons in their traditional method of making leather, so that the old family business can be passed down to yet another generation. One of the issues mentioned in the film is finding enough tannin. By the 1980s the tanners had to supplement the tannin extracted from bark with tannin from Valonia acorns. These were imported from Turkey, and the reporter mentions that Croggon's were the only British importers at the time. The film is notable for showing a tannery in the 1980s employing traditional methods to make leather, at a time when chemicals were often used instead of tannin and many of those making leather were concerned with achieving a quicker turnaround.

Keywords

Tannery; Tanning; Leather

Background Information

"A leather industry [in Grampound] developed during the medieval period based on the ready availability of cattle hides, water and oak bark for the tanning process. Manor Tannery, to the rear of the Manor house, was owned by the Croggon family from 1711 and continued trading using the traditional oak bark tanning technique until its closure in 2000. This site was originally three tanyards that were later combined and it is thought that the medieval tannery of the manor was located here." - www.grampound.org.uk