Today was all about shopping for my birthday present so after a very civilised breakfast overlooking the canal we set off back to the jewellery quarter, although not the fastest route we decided to take the canal route again as it is lovely and it also gave me the chance to show Chris the Banksy which is on the wall by the canal, although signed by him there is some debate as to weather it is by him, but it was good to look at all the same. We have booked tickets for the Coffin museum today as it is near to the jewellery quarter so it shouldn’t affect the day too much. I was wrong yesterday as we walked past the locks I noticed that there is actually a lock 1 on the Farmers locks but we didn’t see any barges going through. We found out where the Coffin museum was then set off for the Jewellery quarter. We had planned to visit the box shop where we had seen a couple of jewellery boxes yesterday, but they didn’t open until 11:00 so we carried on up to the main jewellery area. Our first stop was in a diamond shop who were very helpful, but to be honest although the rings were nice, nothing jumped out at me, I tried to describe what I wanted and they said if we wanted to come back later they would head to the warehouse and see what they could find. By the time we had finished in this shop it was time to head back to the Coffin museum. This is actually the site of the Coffin Works, established in 1882 by Alfred and Edwin Newman. Originally brass founders, they predominantly made cabinet furniture until 1894 when the company moved to the present site on Fleet Street and they began to specialise in the production of coffin furniture. With the move, the brothers made a slight change in their production, they were now listed as ‘Coffin Furniture Manufacturers’ and specialised in the production of general brass furniture. Coffin furniture covers a multitude of products from handles, breastplates, crucifixes, decorative ornaments to shrouds and robes, in fact the only thing they didn’t make was the coffins themselves. The move from cabinet to coffin furniture also coincided with a change in the partnership of the business, Edwin’s involvement was dissolved in 1885, making Alfred the sole owner. Alfred ran the business as a sole trader for 38 years until his death in 1933, at which point the business was valued at £12,500, a sum that suggests the company was doing well. After his death, Alfred’s two sons Horace and George took over the business and it became a limited company. George died in 1944 and Horace in 1952 at which time the day to day running of the business changed to the shareholders and ultimately Joyce Green, Joyce had worked her way up from an office secretary to finally become the sole owner of Newman Brothers in 1989. She was associated with Newman brothers for over 50 years until the company was dissolved in 1999 after which she turned her attentions to saving the building and preserving this slice of history. It was well worth saving, although possibly part of the reason the company went bankrupt is because they never actually modernised which is great for the museum but probably rubbish for staying in business. We started the tour in the courtyard then moved into the pressing room where they made the ‘furniture’ the machinery still works and the guide used a couple of the machines to demonstrate the process, then it was upstairs to the packing room, Newman brothers only ever sold to the trade never directly to retail despite this, great care was taken in packing, they even had different grades of tissue paper. Finally we visited the top floor where the seamstress worked, they were responsible for both making the linings of the coffins and also the shrouds, in the late 1800s / early 1900s shrouds were very formal whereas nowadays people tend to be buried in their own clothes but the detail on some of the ones they had on display was stunning. I hadn’t ever realised that the shrouds were basically just the front half of clothes, and the sleeves weren’t actually attached to the clothes at all, mostly because dead bodies are quite hard to manipulate so it was easier to have something that looked good at the front and could be tucked in. The tour took about an hour and was well worth it, then it was time to head back to the jewellery quarter. We called back into the diamond shop and although they had found some rings that were different nothing really caught my eye so e moved on. I think I can honestly say that I have been in more jewellery shops today than I have in the rest of my life combined! We had some success, managing to buy a couple of things, but despite the multitude of shops and the amount of rings, necklaces and earrings I tried on, only a few things really stood out. All the same as I say we managed to get a couple of bits and had a really good day. We finished about 3pm and started heading back to the hotel, we stopped for something to eat on the way back then relaxed in the room watching the Olympic opening ceremony before another day of sightseeing tomorrow.
