Work in progress

I’m currently making a violin for my son which is based on a Stradivari from 1679 called The Hellier. This instrument has an interesting connection and the story goes like this. Sir Samuel Hellier travelled to Cremona in the eighteenth century and bought the violin directly from the Stradivari workshop. He took the instrument home, which was a village called Wombourne in the county of Staffordshire. The interesting connection is that Wombourne is the village where I spent all of my childhood and where I started making instruments. My parents first house in the village was also rented from the Hellier family who are still there to this day.

I also love the earlier instruments of the violin family including those by the Amati family. This model clearly shows their influence and possibly encourges the idea that Stradivari learnt his craft from them.

If you are interested, I am also in the throes of a long restoration job – an 18th Century former pub! You can see a blog we’re keeping of the progress by clicking the link below. Do sign up via the blog to ‘follow’ if you’d like to see how things progress!

https://queensheadhouse.wordpress.com/

Latest images

Below are images of my latest work – do check back regularly as this page is updated regularly.