This article begins with an overview of the wider project before an in-depth account of the inspiring time I spent with Ray Walton at his workshop in Faversham. It begins with a reminiscence from Göttingen and it was written, rather appropriately, during some quieter moments of the Göttingen Handel Festival (10–25 May 2026) after a busy April studying with Ray Walton (8–9 and 29–30 April 2026) and Miriam Hanid (21–23 April 2026).

Several years ago, I remember sitting outside a café in the main square in Göttingen with my friend, colleague, and former trumpet teacher (now my trumpet-making teacher), David Staff. We saw some men walk past in traditional dress (flared trousers and wide brimmed hats), carrying a wooden hiking pole with twists resembling narwhal tusks. I asked Staffy if he knew why they were dressed like this and what it signified. We had no idea, so we asked the waiter in the café, who explained that they were wearing the attire of a wayfaring carpenter (Zimmermann). We found out that craftspersons such as carpenters who had passed their apprenticeships often undertook a kind of grand tour, for at least three years and a day, as wandering journeymen—the term derives from the French word journée (‘day’), referring to a worker paid by the day rather than a master who owned his own workshop. This time-honoured travel tradition, known as the Wanderjahre or Walz, has continued in various crafts and trades in Germany. It is part of their etiquette to conduct themselves well in public and to wear this distinctive uniform. As a result, several other crafts and trades have adopted the traditional clothing of the carpenter for their Walz, since it is easily recognised and well-respected by people who might offer lifts to hitchhikers.

Since the Middle Ages, journeymen who hoped to achieve master status were often expected to travel between towns in order to broaden their experience by working in a variety of workshops, often for six months at a time. I can imagine that if you had completed your apprenticeship solely with your father, for example, you would learn only his methods of working. However, if you travelled to study with various other masters, you would encounter different tools and unfamiliar artistic styles, methods, and techniques: you would also undoubtedly find new sources of inspiration along the way, from impressive examples of craftsmanship or by studying magnificent buildings (something like Cologne Cathedral, for example) en route. After completing the Wanderjahre (basically a series of itinerant internships), you could return home with more knowledge and inspiration than you may have gleaned from studying with a single master in your original vicinity. Incidentally, tradition dictates that the wanderer should embark and return with a token sum of money upon their person (formerly five marks, now five euros), to show that this journey was completed purely for the experience—the journey cost you nothing but paid for itself.

Seeing those carpenters and reading about their training traditions made me think about how I could further myself as a trumpet maker. I felt that the time was right for me to diversify and learn some additional skills because I am now able to make a complete natural trumpet in brass, and I have the vast majority of the tools required to do this in my well-equipped but small workshop. I have learnt a great deal about trumpet making from David Staff (and, briefly, from Frank Tomes and Graham Nicholson) and I wondered what it would be like to study with jewellers, silversmiths, engravers, and chasing and repoussé specialists. I hoped to study with experienced craftspersons in several of these disciplines, learning not only how each artisan practises their craft and approaches their workload, but also how they organise their workshops, exhibit their work, operate their businesses, engage with customers, and preserve and elevate their craft for future generations.

I specifically hoped to improve my engraving, as I was largely self-taught. I loved the idea of attending one of Miriam Hanid’s chasing and repoussé courses, but knew that I could not justify prioritising this without financial assistance. I also knew that I would require specialist help with some of the most decorative elements of a silver trumpet.

A plan came together and I decided to apply for an Arts Council England ‘Developing Your Creative Practice’ (DYCP) grant. I had prior experience of this programme as I had been awarded a DYCP grant in 2021 which culminated in my book, ‘Just’ Natural Trumpet. One evening I was researching how long I would have to wait before I could apply for a second DYCP project proposal, and by sheer luck I visited the Arts Council England website just two days before the deadline for the first new round that I was eligible to apply for! I wrote a thorough application in record time, and was delighted that it was successful. The application detailed my plan to approach the aforementioned four areas of study: engraving, chasing and repoussé, trumpet making, and silversmithing.

Receiving the DYCP grant made the project possible and I followed the original proposal very closely: I spent three days in October 2025 improving my engraving with Malcolm Appleby; I received an introduction to silversmithing (and explored ferrule making) with Julian Stephens at West Dean College in March 2026; and I spent four days studying chasing and repoussé, focusing on the trumpet’s garland, with Miriam Hanid.

My final tutored sessions would be to focus on the silversmithing techniques required to make the ornamental ball of the trumpet. Making this component would involve complex elements of forming and soldering, in addition to some fairly advanced chasing, planishing, and texturing techniques. Since I was interested in understanding the traditional methods involved in making a trumpet from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century, Miriam Hanid suggested that I should talk to Ray Walton, a silversmith with considerable experience in restoration and conservation work. He has worked on numerous historic artefacts, including the Canterbury Mace (1665) and two Faversham maces from 1650 and 1755. I arranged to visit him at his workshop for a pair of two-day sessions in April.

 

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Having given myself the challenge of making a solid silver trumpet, I had set my sights on attempting to replicate one of the most highly decorated English trumpets extant: a silver trumpet made in London (Londini Fecit) by William Bull (1650–1712)—now owned by Warwickshire Museum and currently in storage at the Market Hall Museum in Warwick. I visited the museum to measure the instrument on 13 October 2025 and spent much of the time before my first visit to Ray Walton’s workshop designing models, making tools, 3D printing jigs, and finalising drawings that would help me realise this ambitious project.

Ray seemed pleasantly surprised by the extent of the preparatory drawings and tooling that I had completed. He studied my dimensioned technical drawings and very kindly telephoned me a few times in advance of the first session to talk about the silver I would require, and to discuss the general approach.

 

Wednesday 8 April 2026

I left home at 05:30 on Wednesday 8 April 2026 and drove to Ray’s workshop, right in the heart of Faversham. His workshop is in the labyrinthine basement beneath the Gallery Kitchen Café in a building that was formerly a bottling plant for the Shepherd Neame Brewery (which is still next door). This building is now a thriving hub for various artisans, called ‘Creek Creative’. 

Ray shares a workshop with two hand engravers, David Bedford and David’s daughter (and former apprentice) Sarah Hobbs. The space consisted of a main room, with a small partitioned area on one side housing an industrial W. Canning Ltd. (Birmingham) polishing motor. The walls of the main room were adorned with certificates, heraldic symbols, professional photographs of finished workpieces, and numerous awards and commendations. Four jeweller’s benches—those of David, Sarah, and Ray, together with a spare for a guest—stood beside a large island workbench fitted with various vices, with stakes stored beneath. In the far corner stood his Colchester ‘Student’ lathe, alongside the soldering hearth and various anvils. 

Even as I unloaded the contents of the various boxes I had brought with me, I could tell that Ray would be an incredibly attentive and excellent teacher. He was interested in how I would approach making the tubes, the bows, the garland, and the bell of the trumpet, in addition to the ornamental ball that we would be focusing on together. I explained my plan for each component of the trumpet and showed him many of the tools that I had brought with me: he offered ideas, guidance, and suggestions, and was able to gauge my overall level of experience from my answers. What was particularly refreshing with Ray was that he was always open-minded about ideas and approaches: ‘There’s more than one way to do everything’, as he put it.

From this initial discussion, it became clear that I had a good understanding of the engineering aspects of trumpet making but that I still had much to learn about the more decorative elements. I would need to adapt my skills and learn techniques associated with more decorative silversmithing work, developing the refinement and fine-detail craftsmanship more commonly associated with jewellery making. I would also need to apply the knowledge and skills I had acquired working with brass to the properties of silver—particularly in soldering, where many of the underlying principles are similar in theory, but the techniques and characteristics of the solders differ in practice.

I had purchased the silver discs required for the ball, which we had discussed over the telephone. I also cut discs of the same dimensions out from a sheet of brass. We discussed whether to start directly with the silver discs or whether to work on a brass prototype first. We decided to start in brass, and I began raising two of the larger discs to make a matched pair of hemispheres using the head of a large steel hammer mounted in the vice as a stake, and a hammer that Ray had made out of lignum vitae, an exceptionally dense wood native to the Caribbean and parts of South America. Since I was using a relatively thin gauge of metal and the two hemispheres would need to be soldered together to form a sphere, it was especially important not to thin the metal near the seam, which could easily happen if using a metal hammer. 

 
Having formed a hemisphere using this historical method, we discussed whether this would be the most practical approach in the modern day, or whether spinning on the lathe would be preferable. This led to a discussion about what would be most historically appropriate for a replica of a trumpet from c.1700. Metal spinning became widespread during the nineteenth century (as a result of the Industrial Revolution and the advent of increasingly powerful, often steam-powered, machinery), though spinning may have existed in earlier less powerful forms. John Anderson described metal spinning in 1869 as a process that had been ‘invented in France only a few years ago’, though earlier forms may have existed. Source: Anderson, John (1869) ‘Metal Spinning’, Scientific American, 11 December 1869.

While we were discussing this subject, I showed Ray an engraving of a trumpet maker (in my book, ‘Just’ Natural Trumpet), a reproduction from Abbildung Der Gemein-Nützlichen Haupt-Stände (‘Illustration of the principal trades’) by Christoph Weigel (1654–1725), an engraver and publisher from Nuremberg—once the most important centre for brass instrument making.

Ray explained that spinning was a much more modern solution and he showed me how it could be done using his Colchester ‘Student’ lathe (noting that it is bad practice to use an engineering lathe for spinning, but that you can get away with it if using a relatively thin gauge of metal). It was good to gain experience of both methods, and it is worth noting that the hemispheres could equally have been formed using a die-stamping method, though we did not try this.

We stopped for lunch, which entailed a short walk through the centre of Faversham to a nice independent sandwich shop where Ray was on first name terms. We walked back and sat on a table just outside the café above the workshop, enjoying the best weather of the year so far. We discussed the tools that I would need to make for the rolling mill to achieve the textured patterns on the ferrules and ball stem. When we went back into the workshop, Ray showed me various examples that he has made for similar applications in the past.

After lunch, Ray gave me an introduction to silver soldering. He wrote ‘E’, ‘H’, ‘M’ and ‘Easy’ on the back of an envelope, where I was to place cleaned paillons of ‘enamelling’, ‘hard’, ‘medium’, and ‘easy’ solder on top of a small scrap of silver sheet. I was slightly surprised that he used ‘medium’ solder, as I had recently been told that many silversmiths do not use it because it doesn’t seem to flow as well as ‘easy’ or ‘hard’ solder. He suspected that I would see why it was so useful after this experiment. Ray talked me through the exercise; I was to make each solder flow in turn, starting with the ‘easy’ solder and finishing with the ‘enamelling’. Once I had done this in a methodical manner, Ray asked me to reheat each of the solders to show which would run again and which seemed to resist the temptation. 

The ‘easy’ and ‘hard’ solders will flow repeatedly, but 'enamelling’ and ‘medium’ become reluctant to reflow as heating alters their composition and depletes their low-melting constituents. Once that exercise had been completed, Ray encouraged me to go too far and burn the silver by overheating it, in order to observe the changes in colour on the approach to (what would normally be) disaster. This was also a valuable exercise. 

For the next exercise, I formed four W-shaped pieces of silver and soldered them onto another scrap of silver sheet, using a different type of solder for each one to solder them side by side. This was also a useful exercise, both in soldering and in getting used to the idiosyncrasies of Ray’s gas torch. I had never used a gas torch exactly like his before; it was similar to the torches I used on the course at West Dean College, however Ray’s had a pilot light, and a button to control the mix of compressed air and gas, which took a lot of getting used to for me. The dial also turned the opposite direction to the Sievert gas torch I have at home—so the end of my soldering operations would often be accompanied by a roar of flames. The engravers were fortunately unfazed by this sudden sound!

Before the first day drew to a close, I recommenced working on the brass hemispheres; Ray set up his height gauge and showed me how to mark a concentric line on each. I then used a jeweller’s frame saw to cut along the line to remove the excess material. This took a bit of practice, and I broke more than a few blades along the way. At home, I would normally do this on the lathe, using a parting-off tool to ensure a clean cut, with the work mounted on a nylon mandrel. Given my first attempts with the frame saw, which left much to be desired, perhaps I will revert to this in the future. However, there will be many other aspects of the design of the ball which will require the use of the frame saw. 

 
Just before we left the workshop for the day, Ray showed me a book entitled ‘A Silversmith’s Manual’ by Bernard Cuzner (first published in 1935), which he leant to me to look at overnight, along with Theophilus’ twelfth century text, On Divers Arts—the most important medieval treatise on painting, glassmaking, and metalwork. These texts encompassed the philosophies of the day, as we had been using methods both ancient and modern. It seemed particularly apt that Cuzner used the analogy of musicians’ coordination to explain the agility, dexterity and harmony between the mind and body. It is also apt that this short extract continues to mention the very same dilemma I was faced with: whether to start out learning in silver or whether to use brass (gilding metal is a form of brass) at first:

‘Let us look for a moment at a few familiar instances of craftsmen in action, so that we may learn a little of the mental and physical state that is essential to the production of fine work. Think of a violinist, with his whole being concentrated on the action of fingers, hands, and body on his fiddle, with ears tense to tell him that his instrument is no longer a thing of wood and gut, but is a very part of his inmost soul. Think of a fine player of any game of skill. Of how his bat or club or racquet or cue, or whatever he may use, makes the ball obey his Will. Or at how all the members of a group of well-trained dancers will make every fibre of their being move in perfect rhythm, so that their dance becomes a part of the eternal order of Nature.

Metals have three outstanding properties that distinguish them from all other substances. They are malleable, fusible, ductile. Metals are crystalline in structure. When subjected to strain as in cold working, the silversmiths' normal practise, the crystals are distorted, the metal hardens and becomes difficult to work. To restore its softness it is annealed, i.e., heated to about 600 deg. centigrade, a dull red, when the strain is relieved and the crystals revert to their original shapes. In working this exercise we learn that metals are malleable.

Any of the exercises given may be worked out in gilding metal, if it should be thought that silver is too costly for first attempts.’ — Bernard Cuzner (1935), ‘A Silversmith’s Manual’, p. 21

After a brilliant first day, Ray and I walked to The Bear Inn and the learning continued there really, now over two pints of Shepherd Neame’s Master Brew. We discussed the importance of socialising in both of our freelance professions: music and silversmithing. Ray explained that he feels it is important to socialise with his students, to show that he is genial and approachable—and this was absolutely true.

Ray’s teaching CV is very impressive, and he teaches at the likes of The Goldsmiths’ Centre and Marchmont Silversmithing Workshop (part of the Hugo Burge Foundation). As a fantastically experienced and award-winning silversmith, it seems that Ray has also established himself as something of a sounding post for some of his colleagues, especially within the association of Contemporary British Silversmiths, and he very kindly offered to do this for me as well. Ray is certainly helping to preserve and elevate his craft for future generations.

We sat outside the pub, enjoying the good weather, and several people he knew passed by and stopped for a chat. Ray is very well known in the local community of Faversham, and I met all sorts of people, including a man who has professionally photographed many of Ray’s works. Ray showed me his own unique business card which folded out to reveal many photographs of his works, including a very impressive chased lion.

 

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Ray and I chatted about all sorts of things, including music, family life, freelancing, Time Team, and Cambodia! It transpired that Ray has appeared on the Channel 4 television series Time Team, and his son lives and brews beer in Cambodia—we both reminisced about our visits there. After dinner, I retired to a hotel and pub called The Quay, right next to Creek Creative. I had a room booked there and I spent much of the evening delving into the two books that Ray had loaned me overnight: A Silversmith’s Manual by Bernard Cuzner and On Divers Arts by Theophilus. I also searched YouTube for Ray’s appearance on Time Team. He can be seen raising a replica of a Bronze Age bucket at 17:14, 37:49, and 43:12 in series 9, episode 13, ‘Seven Buckets and a Buckle’, filmed at Breamore, Hampshire, in 2002. 

Wednesday 29 April 2026

I returned to Creek Creative in Faversham on Wednesday 29 April 2026. Ray and Miriam had already been in touch with each other (presumably predominantly about something else) and had also discussed my progress. Ray knew exactly what I had done at Miriam’s and that I would have an array of new tools to harden and temper.