Astleys by Les Wood Smooth Straight Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

Astleys was one of London’s most historic pipe and tobacco shops. Like many pipe tobacconists, its owners had pipes made specially to be sold under the shop’s name. Astleys pipes, however, were made by some of the premier pipe manufacturers and artisans in the UK, such as Dunhill, Charatan, Les Wood, and Ken Barnes and Barry Jones of James Upshall. As a result, Astleys pipes are prized for their quality, and as examples of the very finest British pipes.

While it is difficult to identify the maker of most Astleys pipes with 100% certainty, there are exceptions. Using our industry contacts, we were able to identify this one as being made by Les Wood and Dolly Wood of Ferndown. As far as Les has told us, there really wasn’t any difference between pipes made under the Ferndown name and those made for Astleys. Instead, Paul Bentley, the owner of the Jermyn St premises, would simply visit Les and Dolly at their workshop every so often, inspect the pipes that had not yet been stamped with the Ferndown name, and claim the ones he liked the most for Astleys. This one, therefore, is the equivalent of a Ferndown Root of a two or three star size grade. For those seeking Ferndowns, and as with some of the other Astleys listings we’ve had, I would invite you to consider that most famous line from Shakespeare: “a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

The condition is great. Some minor darkening and slight finish fading on the pipe’s beveled rim.

 

Details:

Length: 6″ / 152.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.81 / 20.57mm

Bowl Depth: 1.57″ / 39.87mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 46g