Ferndown (c. 1980s) Bark 3 Star Sandblasted Bulldog w/ Silver Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

Ferndown pipes were made by the legendary British pipe maker Leslie “Les” John Wood, along with his wife Dolly. Both Les and Dolly previously worked for Dunhill, where Les developed his skills and reputation as Britain’s premier pipe silversmith. After leaving Dunhill, Les and Dolly began making their own pipes, with their combined knowledge and experience, yielding pipes of a quality that, arguably, exceeded even that of their former employer. Ferndown pipes are highly coveted by pipe smokers due to their superlative craftsman(and woman!)ship, being constructed from high-grade, oil-cured briar, hand cut ebonite, and, in many cases, sterling silver or solid gold ornamentation turned by Les himself. Les and Dolly retired from pipe making in 2016, making Ferndown pipes rather scarce—especially given how difficult it is to get their owners to part with them.

This is a rare sight: a sandblasted Ferndown. Rarer still, it’s a sandblasted Ferndown Bark. For those unfamiliar, Ferndown’s “Bark” was, quite famously, a unique, rusticated finish used by Les Wood and Dolly Wood for the majority of their pipes (around 90% of all Ferndowns). At a time when the notion of a high-grade rusticated finish was mostly confined to Italy (and, to an extent, America) this was very unusual, and yet it paid off, with the Ferndown Bark becoming immensely sought-after by casual pipe smokers and collectors alike. “Barking,” as Les and Dolly termed it, was done not with a hand tool, but with a split drill bit, creating a distinctly fine texture that is still sometimes mistaken for a sandblast finish, but most of the time, a Ferndown labeled as “sandblasted” will, in fact, have been rusticated instead. After all Les and Dolly did not have a sandblasting cabinet in the workshop adjoined to their home, out of which nearly all Ferndown pipes came. However, there are two exceptions to this rule—one situated near the very beginnings of Les and Dolly’s career as independent pipe makers, and one right at the end. The latter was a collaboration between Les and Dolly and Canada’s Michael Parks, with Parks being sent unfinished Ferndowns from the English couple and sandblasting them. These pipes were called the Ferndown Bark Premier. The other exception is a little more complicated. While Les and Dolly’s home workshop did not have the tools for sandblasting Ferndown pipes, the workshops they had used prior to that point did. After Les left Dunhill, he established a workshop in London, which he shared with other ex-Dunhill craftsmen, including Bill Taylor, who was in the process of setting up his own pipe company, Ashton. Some time later, Les and Dolly moved to a workshop in Clavering, which they shared with a furniture company. It was in these two workshops that Les and Dolly first began manufacturing pipes of their own, and this was also where the “Bark” finish was born. However, the Bark was, originally, a sandblast finish. In fact, Les and Dolly were making the “Bark” line before they were making “Ferndown” pipes, as their venture went through a series of names before “Ferndown” was chosen. Prior to Ferndown, Les and Dolly made “Jacobean” pipes (which did not take off, in part because Americans had no idea how to pronounce the word); after Jacobean, the two made “Tudor” pipes (a brand name also subsequently dropped, but which lived on, at least partly, in the Ferndown Tudor Root line). At least as early as their Tudor make, Les and Dolly were creating sandblasted pipes under the name “Bark.” This continued after Ferndown replaced the Tudor make, though it presumably ended when a tragedy at the Clavering workshop meant that Les and Dolly could no longer operate there (as it happens, Les was using the workshop’s sandblasting cabinet when that tragic event occurred). Thankfully, Peter Wilson, of Duncan Briars, later taught Les and Dolly his own technique for rusticating a pipe in a way that was very similar to a sandblast finish, which Wilson generously gave his blessing for the two to use on Ferndown pipes. Thus the “Bark” as we today know it was born. This pipe, on the other hand, preceded the Bark, and is a very rare example not only of a genuinely sandblasted Ferndown, but one whose sandblast finishing was performed by Les and Dolly themselves.

The condition is good. Some inner rim charring and finish fading.

Details:

Length: 6.5″ / 165.1mm

Bowl Width: 0.87 / 22.09mm

Bowl Depth: 1.46″ / 37.08mm

Weight: 2.0oz / 58g