When Butcombe asked us for a collection, we didn’t want four identical handles or a logo stamped on each. We wanted four knives with their own character that still plainly belong together. Each has a different job in the kitchen and a different story in its handle.
The Savernake Knife wears English oak burr, the wild swirls and knots that form when a tree’s normal growth is disrupted. Beautiful, unpredictable and not very stable on its own, so we set it in resin. Every piece is different, which is rather the point.
The OG Carver is in Hampshire yew, the timber of the English longbow. Botanically a softwood, in practice hard, dense and remarkably elastic. Its amber, orange and honey grain needs no stabilisation at all. The Stout Yeoman is English walnut, stabilised over about a month by a specialist in County Durham. It still looks and feels like walnut, just better suited to a working kitchen.
The Classic has the least likely origin. In April 2022 a London plane fell in Soho Square, narrowly missing offices associated with Paul McCartney. London specialists Fallen & Felled salvaged the timber, we secured some of it, and it went to County Durham for stabilising. A tree that spent its life in central London now has a rather more useful second career.
Along each spine runs a blue and white castellation: a poured polymer, cured through successive thermal cycles and tinted by hand. It is Butcombe’s blue, and it shows itself when you turn the knife over. The four travel in a roll-up wrap of deep navy Horween Chamois leather from A & A Crack & Sons, with old-gold highlights stitched by hand by Tiffany in our workshop. Smart, useful, and it should look better in ten years than it does today.
We hope these knives spend rather more time being used than admired.
Until 31 October, you can enter the draw to win the full set, wrap included.
In collaboration with Butcombe Brewing Co..