The Rocking Horse Shop, Fangfoss: Behind the scenes of the Yorkshire business making family heirlooms for 50 years
Next year the Rocking Horse Shop near York celebrates its 50th anniversary. In the build-up to those celebrations, Catherine Scott goes behind the scenes of the business making the heirlooms of tomorrow.
In the small picturesque village of Fangfoss over looking the Yorkshire Wolds, few people even many locals, realise that there is one of the world’s few remaining artisan rocking horse makers in their midst.
The Rocking Horse Shop was founded 50 years ago next year by Andrew Dew who made his first rocking horse in the garage of his home.
He made his first wooden rocking horse back in 1976. It was just him and his wife then, working out of the garage of their house under the company name ‘The Rocking Horse Winner’.
In 1984 they bought an old butcher's shop in Holme upon Spalding Moor and ‘The Rocking Horse Shop’ was born.
That same year Anthony’s book ‘Making Rocking Horses’ was published by David & Charles, along with designs for a large traditional carved rocking-horse, a small on bows and a toddler’s rocker.
Soon the company had two employees and were selling ten different plans with timber packs and all the accessories.
In 1991 the company moved to Fangfoss and built larger, purpose-designed rocking-horse workshops and showroom. By 2011 they were making and restoring hundreds of rocking-horses, as well as selling plans and accessories.
This expansion was pivotal as it allowed for the scaling of production and restoration operations, reaching customers as far afield as Australia, the USA, and Canada.
Andrew may no longer be in charge, with James and Becca taking over the reins (pardon the pun) in 2020 – just before Covid hit – but the ethos of what he started 50 years ago remains the same.
They may now employ some ten members of staff specialising in woodwork, leatherwork, metalwork and painting - making around 50 bespoke rocking horses a year and restoring the same number of treasured family heirlooms.
There is a waiting list for bespoke horses which each take around three to four months to complete. The Rocking Horse Shop is still family run and continues to build on the successes of the past.
"Fifty years is a big achievement for a really small niche toy company to survive and we are gearing up to making a big deal out of those celebrations next year,” says James.
"We are a hand-crafted luxury item and not a necessity and we really want to share what we do here.”
A top of the range rocking horse can cost more than £8,000 but when you think it can take a skilled craftsmen four months to make it puts the price into context.
“The people who work here are artisan craftsmen who are incredibly talented and don’t always get the recognition that they deserve.
"We make everything on site – nothing is imported – we are officially Made in Britain,” says James.
“Every one of our finished horse is a hand crafted individual; ready-to-ride horses are available from stock, or you can commission a 'Special', made to your own preferred size and style.
"All of our work is done on site so it is completely adaptable to your needs,” says James who has worked in pretty much every part of the business to now owning it.”
"In this fast paced world where everyone expects everything tomorrow and the market is flooded with chief imports trying to showcase what we do these are one off horses, they are works of art.
"They are still made in the traditional way but utilising more modern build techniques,” says The Rocking Horse Shop Manager Lin Davies.
“These are the heirlooms of the future and will be used by your grandchildren in 100 years time.”
As well as hand-crafted finished rocking-horses, they publish a wide range of plans, from weekend projects to fully-carved rocking-horses, and the company continues to grow from strength to strength.
The core of the business remains firmly with traditional hand-skills, but they do embrace new technologies where appropriate.
They have three main strands to their work, hand carved horses, restorations and ‘make your own.’
“We are busy with restorations as we are with making new horses and that is keeping the heritage of them and the heirlooms in the families.”
When someone comes into the workshop wanting a rocking horse Lin says the first thing is to find out exactly what they want and why.
“We like to know who the rider will be, what their budget will be and what size they want – down to very intricate details like what direction do they want to horses’s head to turn, what metal work do they want, colour hair – we only use real horse hair – and leather work.”
And the rocking horses made by them are more than just children’s toys to be handed down through the generations.
Lin says they have seen a change in the market recently where there is a demand for more realistic looking horse mainly from the equestrian world.
“So we’ve had to develop bigger more realistic horses with more realistic tack, they even have proper horse shoes.
"We’ve even had people saying their horse has died and they want a tribute to their horse and so we build them a memorial horse, copy blazes and marks and we can put the horse’s ashes inside the rocking horse,” she says.
“We are also finding that people buy them like a work of art and want the horse to fir their colour scheme and so we work with them on that.”
They also have people who turn up on site. “They’ve seen a picture online and want to order that one but then get bamboozled because there is so much choice and will probably leave having ordered something completely different from what they turned up for.
"Throughout the build process we keep in touch with them to let them know how it is going and send them progress photographs. We carve the head first and send the photograph.
"And at the end of the build we give them a digital folder so they can see their horse from being a plank of wood to the end result and by then it is already a member of their family as they will have added certain personalisation including the name.”
Each horse is made out of around 24 individually carved pieces and when they are put together there is a hollow where people can add a memory box.
They do have some stock horses in the showroom which people can buy straight away that may have been made for event such as the Great Yorkshire Show.
And they do get some unusual requests.
“Before Covid we had a lady call us from the London area who said the cherry tree from her family home had been damaged in a storm and she said if she got it dried could we use it to make a rocking horse,” says Lin.
“Then Covid hit and we didn’t hear form her and then out of the blue some years later saying her wood was ready and could we make the horse which we did and it was a memorial to her parents and she put photographs inside of her and her brother playing in the tree as children and letters.
"That was a very special horse for us.”
They also like to do one horse a year for charity.
Actress Susan George was a friend of the lady with the cherry wood horse and she asked them if they would make one to be auctioned off for her Lasting Life cancer charity.
It raise an incredible £10,000, but James says he prefers to make a donation to smaller charities who really need the support.
James says, as he looks to the next half a century of the Rocking Horse Shop, he finds it quite strange that people come from London and abroad to get their rocking horse from the workshop and yet many people in and around York don’t even know they are there.