The craftsmen

Alan Eldridge
Alan Eldridge originally studied Architecture, he realised that he wished to devote himself to the creation of finely crafted furniture. After a course in Furniture Design and Cabinet Making at the prestigious Ryecotewood College in Oxfordshire, he decided to start his own business in 1985.
Over the last 20 years he has built up a thriving business and now employs eight craftsmen. All the employees are college trained and have worked with Alan for between three and twelve years. More recently Alan’s wife Joanne has joined the team in an administrative roll. Her background prior to having her three children is in banking, secretarial work and customer care.

A.B.WOODWORKING
Tony Butler and Valerie Knowles were taught to make Shaker boxes by John Wilson, an American Boxmaker, based in Charlotte, Michigan. For seventeen years they made boxes for the Shaker Shop in London. Makers of traditional oval Shaker boxes, they have developed a wide range of Shaker style products over the years using the same construction techniques. Although most of their output is sold in London, their work has sold worldwide. Ten percent of their production at the present time is sold to high class stores in Japan. Their company, A.B.Woodworking, is based in rural Shropshire, on the border with Wales. The staff number six persons who are mutli-skilled in all the areas of making and finishing Shaker boxes.

In the early days the workshop was situated in a garden shed, but quickly progressed to the loft of a friend’s barn, then to a workshop complex on an industrial estate.

The traditional oval Shaker boxes are made from American hardwoods – Cherrywood, black walnut and hard maple. The timber is purchased from importers in two inch thick planks. These are sawn to the correct dimensions needed for each size of box, and then sliced into veneers which are sanded to the thickness required. Small boxes have thin bands, larger boxes have thicker bands. Using very hot water, the bands have the distinctive swallowtails cut by hand, and the bands are then bent on a mould and nailed with tiny copper nails on a stainless steel bar anvil. Shapers hold the box in shape while it is drying for a couple of days. A lid and base are ground to fit snugly, after which the box is sanded carefully, and oiled with an environmentally friendly wax/oil, before polishing with good quality wax polish.

Over the years we have made many thousands of reproduction Shaker and Shaker style boxes. The biggest order was for three and a half thousand hamper boxes for a well known London grocer. In our first year we manufactured a thousand Size 6 Cherrywood Shaker boxes for the Ecco shoe company.
There are five hundred waste paper baskets and pen tubs in an office block in Kuwait, as well as hundreds of waste bins in hotels strung across Europe and the United Kingdom.

Although manufacturing in the UK is not easy, and making hand-made wooden products profitably is a particular challenge in these days, we still enjoy our work. The craftsmanship of our team at A.B.Woodworking is appreciated by our customers, who keep coming back for more Shaker boxes. The boxes were once described as “tomorrow’s heirlooms” and we romantically dream that in a hundred or more years time they will be presented on the Antiques Roadshow when the broadcaster will inform the viewers that the box on show was made by our company in rural Shropshire.

The workshop - The history