Tudor Bark by Les Wood Sandblasted Billiard Estate Briar Pipe, English Estates

Description

Those who are familiar with the pipes of Les Wood will likely have several questions about this pipe. I will try to answer them as briefly as possible.

If you’ve followed our listings over the last few months, you might have seen some of the “Jacobean” pipes we’d discovered in an old new old stock (NOS) lot. This pipe is not NOS and is not from that lot, but its story is tightly connected to those pipes. As detailed in the aforementioned listings, the Jacobean was one of the first ventures into pipe making that Les Wood and Dolly Wood had pursued after both had officially left Dunhill. Later, the two would start a new pipe company, L&JS Briars, through which they sold their immensely popular Ferndown pipes. For finer details, I’d recommend reading our interview with Les on the main MBSD Pipes hub, in which is also (briefly) mentioned another pipe brand made by Les and Dolly: the “Tudor.” As Les graciously informed me, the Tudor was made by Les and Dolly after they had retired the Jacobean but before they finally settled on Ferndown as the name for their pipes. Like the Jacobean and Ferndown makes, Tudor pipes were oil cured and typically featured silver mountings, but were also made with better briar and hand cut stems, something which carried over into Ferndown pipes. One striking difference between Tudors and Ferndowns, as seen here, is the finish. Ferndown “Tudor” [Root] pipes were smooth, while Ferndown “Bark” pipes were “barked,” the name given by Les and Dolly to their signature, unique rustication technique. By contrast, the Tudor “Bark” wore a sandblast finish, one devised before Les was taught to rusticate by his friend Peter Wilson of Duncan Briars. Ferndown is notable for the relative absence of sandblasted finishes within its portfolio (with the few exceptions being pipes made in collaboration with Michael Parks), making this beautiful, ring grain Tudor a very rare pipe indeed.

The condition is good. Some rim darkening and finish fading.

 

Details:

Length: 6.2″ / 157.4mm

Bowl Width: 0.87 / 22.09mm

Bowl Depth: 1.60″ / 40.64mm

Weight: 1.6oz / 46g