The Rewild Project brings a mobile traditional tannery workshop to Hedge-U-cation Family camp each year.
There will be a display stall, and workshops and demonstrations on making sheepskins, deer skin and fish-skin tanning, and natural dyeing.
Tanning is our oldest craft and a lost art…
Leather is now mostly produced in China by mass scale processing using lots of chemicals. Not only does the industry have bad effects on the environment, it is also potentially harmful to ourselves to be wearing garments that are produced so unnaturally. Once upon a time we would have made all our clothes, shoes, bedding and accessories such as tool covers from this ancient craft, and you would have found a tanner on the edge of every village!
The Rewild Project also teaches more in-depth courses on making leather and fur-on skins, at Oaklands Park in the Forest of Dean. Courses run over weekends or one day a week for six weeks; please see the Rewild Project courses page for more details.
