The Guild Collection

The Birmingham Guild's vocabulary, with the rose as its mark.

The Birmingham Guild of Handicraft opened its doors in 1890 under the architect Arthur Dixon, who believed that machine-made ornament had erased the hand from English design. The Guild made silver, copper, and brass in the Arts and Crafts vocabulary — disciplined geometry, visible hammering, honest construction. Their motto was By Hammer and Hand. Their hallmark was a small five-petal rose, chased into the back of every piece they finished as the maker's signature.

The Guild Collection brings that vocabulary forward. Two knobs — the faceted octagonal with its hexagonal hammered backplate, and the round beaten dome — each offered in 32mm for cabinet doors and 38mm for drawers. A scooped cup pull at 128mm centres with chamfered octagonal ends. Three hexagonal-section bar handles at 128, 192, and 320mm centres, joined to the cabinet by octagonal posts that echo the knobs. All cast in solid Birmingham brass, then planished by hand to bring the dimples back into the surface. And on every piece, the Guild's rose returns — chased into the centre of each knob, each cup, each bar. A small mark, the size of a sixpence, that says where the piece was made and by whose lineage.

Eight pieces in three finishes. Held in stock at the workshop.