David Savage
Yorkshire-born David Savage first came to Devon in the 1980s to set up his furniture-making workshop in Bideford. His previous workshop in London had proved less than adequate and this signalled the time to move.
"I had a small workshop in my house in London but it was not large enough to do very much in," says David. "I had to warn my neighbour, Betty, to go out if I wanted to use a noisy machine. I couldn't afford to employ anybody and this was before the time of small business units." There was an IRA bombing campaign in London at that time and David says he remembers one going off quite near where he was shopping, so he decided to get out of the city.
In his early years, David was advised and assisted by Alan Peters OBE, a renowned British furniture designer-maker who was an inspiration to generations of woodworkers. David says: "Alan was a wonderful mentor. He had everything that I wanted and knew everything I did not know. He had a lovely workshop near Cullompton, with a quadrangle of barns and studios. He had tons of skill gathered over a lifetime of hard work and he seemed to know how to make a living out of this."
Before long David was also making a life for himself in Devon and his business was going from strength-to-strength as the countryside environment inspired his work. "I'm incredibly lucky and I know that," he says. "The workshops here at Rowden look down over a meadow to a beautiful lake. I live and work in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. I cannot help but be affected by that. I take my inspiration from the hedgerows around me, from the sea and the beaches and from the human form."
While David has built a very successful business, he insists that what he does is at the opposite end of the scale to industry and manufacturing. He explains that while product designers are interested in mass markets, what he is doing is developing products that have been made for one person, by one person.
"Made for a specific place or person, we build that product leaving evidence of skilled human activity," he says. "Industry creates the perfectly dead flat surface. We create a surface where a skilled human being has struggled and failed. Our work bears witness to human intensity and inability. This is the opposite of manufacture, this is making. All making – bread making, pasta making, furniture making – is an act of love."
And this is something that David explains in his book Furniture with Soul, which delves deep into the minds of his favourite fine furniture designers and makers. "My book is about ten old greybeards who have been making things for the past 40 years," he says. "Doing it mostly alone or with one helper in small workshops in Britain and America. I wanted to write a book about people doing more, more than 'the extra mile'. These people spill their guts on the pieces they make year after year after year. This isn't just furniture."
Now David is passing on this approach to the students who pass through his atelier. Each year, he trains eight to ten students who come to Rowden for a one-year intensive fee-paying course, during which they learn to make to a very high standard. However, they also start to learn other important skills during their tuition, such as design, business, marketing and PR.
But what is next for David Savage and where does he go from here? Not one to rest on his laurels, David already has his sights set on a number of ambitious goals. Firstly, he wants to make a chair that is as good as, or better than, the very best version of the George Hepplewhite shield-back chair, which he acknowledges is a big ask. Secondly, he wants to build studios with a long glass wall overlooking the meadow and down to the lake. "This will be a part of seeing Rowden secure into the next phase of development under new leadership," he says. Finally, he wants to develop a new apprentice scheme that will take one of his students each year and provide them with a supervised second year, making commercial pieces.
David Savage
Yorkshire-born David Savage first came to Devon in the 1980s to set up his furniture-making workshop in Bideford. His previous workshop in London had proved less than adequate and this signalled the time to move.
"I had a small workshop in my house in London but it was not large enough to do very much in," says David. "I had to warn my neighbour, Betty, to go out if I wanted to use a noisy machine. I couldn't afford to employ anybody and this was before the time of small business units." There was an IRA bombing campaign in London at that time and David says he remembers one going off quite near where he was shopping, so he decided to get out of the city.
In his early years, David was advised and assisted by Alan Peters OBE, a renowned British furniture designer-maker who was an inspiration to generations of woodworkers. David says: "Alan was a wonderful mentor. He had everything that I wanted and knew everything I did not know. He had a lovely workshop near Cullompton, with a quadrangle of barns and studios. He had tons of skill gathered over a lifetime of hard work and he seemed to know how to make a living out of this."
Before long David was also making a life for himself in Devon and his business was going from strength-to-strength as the countryside environment inspired his work. "I'm incredibly lucky and I know that," he says. "The workshops here at Rowden look down over a meadow to a beautiful lake. I live and work in one of the most beautiful parts of the world. I cannot help but be affected by that. I take my inspiration from the hedgerows around me, from the sea and the beaches and from the human form."
While David has built a very successful business, he insists that what he does is at the opposite end of the scale to industry and manufacturing. He explains that while product designers are interested in mass markets, what he is doing is developing products that have been made for one person, by one person.
"Made for a specific place or person, we build that product leaving evidence of skilled human activity," he says. "Industry creates the perfectly dead flat surface. We create a surface where a skilled human being has struggled and failed. Our work bears witness to human intensity and inability. This is the opposite of manufacture, this is making. All making – bread making, pasta making, furniture making – is an act of love."
And this is something that David explains in his book Furniture with Soul, which delves deep into the minds of his favourite fine furniture designers and makers. "My book is about ten old greybeards who have been making things for the past 40 years," he says. "Doing it mostly alone or with one helper in small workshops in Britain and America. I wanted to write a book about people doing more, more than 'the extra mile'. These people spill their guts on the pieces they make year after year after year. This isn't just furniture."
Now David is passing on this approach to the students who pass through his atelier. Each year, he trains eight to ten students who come to Rowden for a one-year intensive fee-paying course, during which they learn to make to a very high standard. However, they also start to learn other important skills during their tuition, such as design, business, marketing and PR.
But what is next for David Savage and where does he go from here? Not one to rest on his laurels, David already has his sights set on a number of ambitious goals. Firstly, he wants to make a chair that is as good as, or better than, the very best version of the George Hepplewhite shield-back chair, which he acknowledges is a big ask. Secondly, he wants to build studios with a long glass wall overlooking the meadow and down to the lake. "This will be a part of seeing Rowden secure into the next phase of development under new leadership," he says. Finally, he wants to develop a new apprentice scheme that will take one of his students each year and provide them with a supervised second year, making commercial pieces.
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