Winter adventures

Make the most of starry skies and frosty mornings this winter and get out into the wild. Wynnchester is your guide to three essential elements of adventure kit: your bed, your shelter and your pack 

Patrol Pack, £150

Wynnchester was born out of a passion for beautiful design, a respect for simplicity and a love of nature. Today, they design heritage-inspired outdoors equipment for modern-day adventurers. Their customers include former and serving military, professional cowboys, scout masters and bushcraft instructors. Let's take a look at their expedition inventory:

Adventurer Bedroll

The bedroll is a simple solo shelter that sets up in seconds. Fully enclosable, it requires no ground sheet, no guy ropes and no pegs. Built to last, the bedroll is manufactured in the UK using only the finest, military-spec materials. The all-canvas construction is robust and durable, pre-treated for water, rot and fire resistance. Wynnchester’s bedrolls are used by hundreds of professionals and recreational campers the world over. £525

Adventure Tarp

Made from the same material as the bedroll, this tough canvas tarp won’t catch fire or be ruined by flying embers from your campfire or cooking stove. Measuring 3m x 1.85m, it is the perfect size for a one-man shelter. With a total of 10 reinforced attachment points, the setups are limited only by your imagination. £225

Patrol Pack

After many years restoring vintage Norwegian Army patrol packs in their workshops, the design was a natural choice for Wynnchester’s line of new-made bags. Their modern version, the 18L PATROL, remains true to the original and is constructed from military-spec canvas and 100% cowhide top grade leather.  Each bag in the limited edition run is individually numbered and available in a choice of a fully waterproof, modern dry finish or a traditional hand-waxed finish using Wynnchester’s own all-natural wax formula. £150

Get 10% off these items using code ERNEST10 online at wynnchester.com

Gift guide: gently rugged carry goods

We are proud to introduce one of our sponsors Rural Kind: makers of simple, functional and gently rugged waxed canvas and leather carry goods for everyday adventuring, handcrafted in the hills of Wales

Key Carry
A sturdy and dependable strap for carrying your keys, with a brass stud fastening for attaching to a belt or bag. Handmade with oak bark tanned leather and solid brass hardware. £28

Roll-top Rucksack
Rugged enough for the hills, handsome enough for the city. This refined roll-top design is made with heavyweight waxed canvas and Devon leather. £250

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Glasses Case
Be kind to your eyewear with this strong, refined and protective glasses case. Made by hand in our rural workshop from rich and characterful oak bark tanned leather. £89

Utility Bag
For everyday adventures, carrying tools, loading with books or filling with fresh groceries. Strong, durable and handcrafted from waxed canvas and oak bark tanned leather. £190

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Card Wallet
A simple and functional two pocket wallet for carrying a few cards and some notes. Crafted from oak bark tanned leather and hand-stitched with a waxed linen thread. £36

Musette
For city strolls, gentle rides and everyday rambles. This waxed canvas and leather cross-body bag is our gently rugged take on the classic cyclist’s musette. £129

To find out more about Rural Kind, visit our Directory. 

A glossary of seafaring terms

From "knucker" to "knockarse", historian Chris Hare is your guide to fisherman's words past and present

Illustration: Joe McLaren

bexhill bunny (noun)

A term used on-board instead of saying ‘rabbits’, which was considered unlucky. Prolonged periods of bad weather meant that fishermen were forced to stay on shore and hunt for rabbits. 

gipper (noun)

Slime that oozes out of newly caught fish. 

hoggie (noun)

A Sussex fishing boat, particularly associated with Brighton. 

knockarse (noun)

A boat with a flat stern, like a hoggie. 

knucker (noun)

A legendary dragon that lived in the spring-fed pools found on the coastal plain of Sussex, known as knucker holes. 

mace (noun)

A dialect word for credit, e.g. “How did you afford your new nets?”, “Oh, I bought them on the mace.” 

shay (noun)

A bright misty haze or halo seen at night, often associated with supernatural apparitions. 

shraves (noun)

The dips in the chalk cliffs as seen from the sea, the truncated valleys of the the South Downs, e.g.The Seven Sisters. 

silver darlings (noun)

Fishermen’s slang for herring. A good catch of herring was worth a great deal to fishermen, equal in value to nets of silver. 

whale (noun)

A name for a fisherman’s apron. 

Chris Hare's book The Secret Shore and CD South Coast Songs and Shanties is available to buy at secretshore.org.uk.

This glossary originally featured in issue six of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

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Shooting on a Leica IIIc

Dressed in woollen breeches and hobnailed boots, photographer Hanson Leatherby and writer Oliver Carter-Wakefield set out to climb Snowdon in the footsteps of mountaineer George Leigh Mallory, and to capture the expedition with the Kodak camera of the day – the Leica IIIc. We caught up with Hanson to find out more about this robust, yet elegant, piece of kit.

Images by Hanson Leatherby

For those unfamiliar with vintage cameras, what is a Leica?

The first 35mm film Leica prototypes were built by Oskar Barnack at Ernst Leitz Optische Werke, Wetzlar, in 1913. Intended as a compact camera for landscape photography, particularly during mountain hikes, the Leica was the first practical 35 mm camera that used standard cinema 35 mm film. Barnack conceived the Leica as a small camera that produced a small negative, with high quality lenses that could create well-defined negatives.

Tell us about the model you’re using – the IIIc.

My Leica IIIc was made in 1940. It's very small and portable with tiny interchangeable lenses that are really sharp and render beautifully with B&W film. They call it the 'Leica glow' with lenses from this era. The nature of shooting with a rangefinder urges you to frame in certain ways that give the image a particular style no other camera can give. This, as well as its portability, is why I chose it.

What should a user bear in mind when it comes to handling and operating this camera?

You have to cut the film leader to fit the film into the camera, which is a bit of a challenge. The shutter speed dial has to be operated after the film is wound on, not before.

How did you find using the Leica on the Mallory shoot in Snowdonia? Were there any surprises or challenges?

I have shot a lot with this camera so no surprises, really. As mentioned before, loading film is the main challenge as you have to cut the film leader to slide it into the body of the camera so that is doesn't foul the cloth shutter curtain. The curtain runs horizontally directly in front of the film plain, so when you slide film into the body of the camera it can hit the shutter curtain and cause damage or a jam.

Any other exciting shoots coming up?

The next shoot I have coming up is a Brassaï style nighttime street shoot in Paris, shot on film with models wearing 1930s clothing.

Hanson Leatherby is a Bebop fanatic, aesthete and an escapist. He is also a lover of cubism, sharp suits and industrial design. He shoots film on manual cameras to keep him sane.

hansonleatherby.com

You can read about Hanson and Oliver's experience walking in the footsteps of Mallory in issue 6 of Ernest Journal, on sale now.

Pressing seaweed

Following in the bootsteps of intrepid Victorian seaweed hunters, Melanie Molesworth and Julia Bird collect and press specimens along the Cornwall and Dorset coast 

As natural history was coming into its own in the 1800s, the biggest clubs for the ‘gentlemen sciences’ still banned women. While hunting was seen as too dangerous a pursuit and digging up plants too sexually loaded, gathering seaweed was deemed relatively safe. A popular pastime for both Queen Victoria and George Eliot, it was not, however, without risks. Margaret Gatty advised wearing men’s boots and, due to the dangers involved (especially on low-water mark expeditions), the protection of a gentleman companion may be necessary. She warned he might require some enticing by proposing he “fossilize, or sketch, or even (if he will be savage and barbaric) shoot gulls”, while his lady collect her crop. 

With their crop, which they gather along the shores of Cornwall and Dorset, Melanie Molesworth and Julia Bird create beautiful pressings and artwork. They kindly share their secrets with us:

1. Start by gathering your seaweed in a bucket – low tide is the best time.

2. Rinse well before placing them in a large plastic or metal tray dish filled with a couple of inches of fresh cold water. 

3. Place a piece of watercolour paper in, then float your chosen piece of seaweed on top. 

4. Swirl and arrange your seaweed over the paper until you are happy with it – you may want to snip a few bits off to make a cleaner shape. 

5. Slowly lift the paper out and lay it on kitchen paper or cloth to help soak up some of the excess water. Blot with kitchen roll or blotting paper. 

6. Place a piece of greaseproof paper on top and then a layer of newspaper, followed by a sheet of cardboard, before adding the next specimen and repeat steps 4 and 5. 

7. They will then be ready to press – you could use an old-fashioned trouser press or pile books on top. 

8. Check seaweeds daily and replace the newspaper layers and paper until dry. 

9. Carefully peel the paper off (some pieces are more fragile than others) and fix them in place, to display, using thin strips of masking tape. 

10. Seaweed identification can be tricky as there are hundreds of species. Try Seaweeds of Britain and Ireland published by Seasearch, £16.95. 

You can see more of Melanie Molesworth and Julia Bird’s beautiful seaweed pressing and artwork at MolesworthandBird.com and on Instagram.  

This originally featured in issue six of Ernest Journal, on sale now. 

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Issue 6

Sale Price:£5.00 Original Price:£10.00

Quantity:

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