Knives out: Sheffield’s craft steel revival

Hugo Worsley is standing in the corner of his rooftop studio in Hackney, explaining with great pride the simple functionality of a spindly machine. “You basically put plastic in the top, it grinds it up and then pellets come out,” says the former chef of the recycling device he built himself in 2020. Today, he uses it to turn kitchen waste into Technicolor handles for his knife brand AllDay Goods.

Scattered across his desk are finished versions: one handle is lime green, derived from milk bottle caps. Another is Yves Klein blue with yellow ripples.

He stuffs his hand into a box and unwraps a large Santoku blade, and begins the assembly. It’s the first sample from his latest production batch and the steel is not patinated or hammered, but smooth, matt and minimalist.

“I was making the knives in Japan, but considering sustainability is my focus, it didn’t feel right to ship blades halfway around the world,” he says. Stamped on the edge, in bold type, the knife reads: Made in Sheffield.

Known as Steel City, Sheffield’s cutlery trade dates back to the 13th century, spurred by the area’s combination of iron, coal and water power sources. It is even mentioned in The Canterbury Tales. In the mid-19th century, nearly half of all European steel was produced in Sheffield. By the 1950s, cutlery production alone employed 15,000 people — but since then that industry has rapidly declined and now there are fewer than 100 workers.

However, Worsley is part of a new wave of independent makers marrying cutting-edge, conscious craft with Sheffield’s age-old kitchenware industry. “It’s about creating opportunities to make sure these skills don’t disappear,” he says.

“We use Sheffield’s famous SF100 steel, and they’re cut, polished and stamped by hand by David,” he says of his 73-year-old maker, who has been cutting knives from his family-owned workshop for five decades. “They’re proper Sheffield, through and through . . . the city is an important part of AllDay’s story. It’s the birthplace of all this stuff.”

Other entrants to the market include Alex Andrejczuk, of Aposl, and Michael May, who produce custom cleavers with innovative details. Andrejczuk mixes salvaged wood with colourful resins to create wavy designs, while May’s oyster knife has a handle crafted from shells.

Thom Barnett, of the menswear brand Mamnick, makes stainless steel bracelets and money clips with a fourth-generation craftsman — along with a “chippie fork”. Designed with hikers and cyclists in mind, the miniature key ring, which doubles as a bottle opener, takes inspiration from the plastic cutlery found in fish and chip shops. “It’s fun and unexpected,” says Barnett.

Others are engaging with the city’s heritage in different ways, connecting digital natives with their hunter-gatherer analogue roots. Scissor maker Ernest Wright has a museum above its factory, while Stuart Mitchell offers knife-making classes in Portland Works, the Grade II-listed building known as the birthplace of cutlery.

Brands such as Blok, based in Derbyshire, and Alex Pole in Somerset are buying Sheffield-made steel for their knives. “There’s a consistency [here] that we can’t quite match with steels from elsewhere,” says Blok’s Ben Edmonds. “It’s important to me that we use a local material. My customers almost expect it.”

Sheffield steel is synonymous with quality. The Brooklyn Bridge was built from it; the walkways around Sydney’s Opera House are reinforced with it. But for decades, Sheffield’s business has been on a knife edge. In the 1970s and 1980s, manufacturing was offshored to Japan, then China; steelworks and workshops shut down.

Then came the Margaret Thatcher era. A wave of privatisations, strikes and recessions, depicted in the 1997 film The Full Monty, ensued. Fifty thousand steel and engineering jobs were lost between 1980 and 1983. It was traumatic for a city whose proud identity was inextricably linked to its manufacturing prowess. Everything from its ice hockey team to the pubs derive their name from it.

“It was a very difficult time,” recalls David, Worsley’s maker, who provides only his first name. “It became all about cost, and we just couldn’t compete with prices in the Far East.”

It takes David about a day to make each knife for AllDay Goods, which sell for £85-£120. But despite the handmade nature of this work, in Britain, manufacturing of this ilk has always been seen as blue-collar labour, rather than an artisanal skill worth preserving. It lacked the romance associated with handknits, pottery and other crafts.

“When you think of Sheffield you probably think of a [L S] Lowry painting; that harsh, cold, rugged darkness of industry,” says Mamnick’s Barnett, whose grandfather was a steel forger. “People associate it with the smell of burning. It’s a contrast to how your brain works when you buy luxury products.”

But much of Sheffield’s trade was actually done by “little mesters” — independent craftsmen who, together, formed a local supply chain for businesses. Workshops were built with connecting doors; this architectural infrastructure is beneficial for today’s creatives.

“It’s easier to find small studios in Sheffield,” says Simon Maillet, a self-taught forger. His workshop is in a mews near Kelham Island, the former home of the steelworks on the canal. “Manchester was a bigger industry with big [cotton] warehouses . . . That’s why we say Sheffield is the city of craftspeople,” he says. Rents are also more affordable, and London is only two hours away by train. It’s not hard to see the appeal.

The lockdown of 2020 was a turning point. “Lots of people moved back home or spent time perfecting their hobby craft,” says Scott Mclellan, who established his sharpening studio in a former pewter factory after he was made redundant from his marketing job during the pandemic. His neighbours include a ceramicist, a photographer and a personal trainer.

Worsley created AllDay during the first lockdown working from his parents’ shed. “Friends kept asking where they could buy decent chef knives that didn’t cost loads of money,” he says.

Stuck at home, cooking elaborate recipes, younger people began buying with intention: everyday kit was upgraded. The formerly overlooked kitchen drawer became a focus. “An 18 year-old fresh out of college brought his knives in for me to sharpen the other week,” says McLellan. “I can’t imagine that happening a few years ago. Kids care more about the things they buy. They want to look after them.”

Storytelling and provenance is key. Tom Hibbert, who co-owns Good as Gold, a café in south-east London, recently bought one of AllDay’s knives. “The design is really cool, bright and fun, but the whole kitchen waste angle and the fact it’s made in Sheffield was what sold it to me,” says the restaurateur, who is originally from Leeds, an hour away.

The focus is not just on preserving the industry, but pushing it into the modern era. Paul Jacobs, a co-owner of the 1902-founded Ernest Wright, is currently restoring the business from the inside out. Inside, Gen Z craftsmen in training sit at workbenches, while outside, the factory’s facade is getting a 1930s-style glow-up. He’s repointed the brickwork, installed new signage in period lettering and has refitted traditional factory sash windows — with double-glazed, soundproof glass.

“It’s industrial Art Deco,” Jacobs says, of the city’s aesthetic. Many former factories, though, have been turned into boxy student flats. “There are so many of these buildings that people have stopped seeing the beauty. We need to give people a reason to pay attention again.”

Worsley agrees. In October, AllDay Goods took on investment from Tom Gozney, creator of the Roccbox portable outdoor pizza oven. Together, with a combined Instagram following of 500,000, they hope to spread the message further, helping get more plastic waste out of kitchens and more Sheffield knives into them — and to employ more people in the process.

“The dream is to turn this small knife company into a larger Sheffield business,” says Worsley, who also launched a collection of steak knives with fashion designer Paul Smith in December. Priced at £120 for four, they were made using waste from the brand’s offices and sold in its stores; they promptly sold out. “There’s exciting things happening in the city. How fun would it be to move here? To really be a part of it.”

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