Knives out at the Blenheim Forge
In south London, a cult is forged
“This is 5,000-year-old oak that’s been in a swamp in Cambridgeshire,” explains James Ross-Harris, co-founder of South London knifemaker Blenheim Forge. He’s brandishing a dusty plank of wood. “It’s been petrified by all the minerals and salts. We use that for handles, it comes out really nicely.”
Blenheim Forge, where Ross-Harris and his bladesmiths meld raw metals via brute force and extreme heat, is nestled in an arch beneath the track running into Peckham Rye train station. It’s just how you imagine a forge to smell, sound and look. Viking-like men in weathered boots and jeans hammer and grind in the dark space, which has the odour of a working garage. Their work is punctuated by the occasional flare of hot metal or the spark of a blade on a spinning stone. “Dickensian” is doubtless the word.
The company, founded five years ago, produces between 30 and 40 knives monthly in traditional Japanese shapes. Everything is made by hand, and the resulting knives have a grizzled, ornate toughness that speaks to their time in the crucible. The wavy layers of metal are polished to the surface for an extra burly aesthetic.
There are seven kitchen knives in the core range, which starts at £170, and all serve a slightly different purpose, such as a Nakiri vegetable knife, or a Gyuto slicer. There are also limited editions, which run close to £1,000 and sell out in minutes. Blenheim Forge is now a cult brand with fans in the US and Norway, and its sales have doubled in the past year.
“When we started, it was us and a company called Blok, up in Derby,” says Ross-Harris. “We started around the same time, but since then it’s a much more familiar concept. When we started, people were like, ‘What do you mean you made the knife?’. That wasn’t a thing.”
Now there are others, such as Savernake in Wiltshire and Ferraby in Sheffield, but few are as “vertical” as Blenheim Forge. It even makes its own motor-driven sharpening wheels. (Most bladesmiths use belt sanders, but the stone method, copied from the Japanese, is more efficient. It’s especially badass, too.)
Ross-Harris foresees the company “chilling out a bit” in 2020. “It’s just about making sure the quality stays where it is,” he explains. “We get hundreds of requests from people to work for us, but it’s hard to train people up. A lot of people think they’re just going to walk in, pick up a hammer and start pounding some steel. But it doesn’t really work like that.” ○
Santoku Knife, £300, by Blenheim Forge; blenheimforge.com