Cumbria Crystal is the last producer of fully handblown, luxury English lead crystal in the UK. Its glasses grace the dining tables of British embassies across the world and blockbuster films, but like many heritage businesses it is having to adapt to a rapidly changing business landscape

For a champagne toast at the wedding of Tom and Lucy, and to fuel a jolly good debate at dinner, nothing else will do; for the Crawley family it has to be luxury lead crystal. Even the cook Mrs Patmore gets in on the act smuggling in “something special” from her hipflask to sip from the family’s premium glassware when the tables are turned and the servants move ‘upstairs’.

It is all in the latest Downton Abbey movie, A New Era, of course, when the details of the lives of wealthy Lord Grantham and Co. are meticulously planned down to the last sherry glass. Which is all good news for Cumbria Crystal, the Ulverston company that makes the glasses that feature whenever the Crawleys are at home at Downton entertaining or gathering over food and drink.

Dinner with the Crawleys in the fifth series of Downton Abbey, set in 1924 [credit Nick Briggs]

Once again the movie makers turned to the last independent British maker of luxury handblown, handcut lead crystal to make sure tables looked authentic and suitably aristocratic. Cumbria Crystal’s Grasmere collection has appeared in most, if not all, the television series of Downton Abbey and both films.

But it is not just the Crawleys who appreciate the quality of the Cumbrian-made glasses. The double old fashioned whisky tumbler from the same collection is the glass of choice for James Bond too, Daniel Craig suavely pressing it to his lips in the film Casino Royale.

For close on half a century, Cumbria Crystal has been bringing elegance and sophistication to the tables of the rich and famous. The Grasmere collection is by far the company’s biggest seller but was already a popular line before its starring role on the big and small screen, says Chris Blade, CEO of Cumbria Crystal since 2015.

“Downton Abbey the series and its spin-offs have brought us a huge amount of publicity, both here and across the Atlantic,” he says, confirming that the film and TV companies chose to draw from an existing collection, rather than commission their own.

“It was already a big seller, and now we can’t make enough of it,” adds Chris, of the Grasmere collection, whose popularity he puts down to the fact that it makes an affordable gift that is both functional and decorative and will never be out of fashion.

“There is something about the double old fashioned whisky tumbler in particular that makes it a really nice size gift for him, or her, for soft drinks or spirits. It’s versatile, but also really beautiful, iconic glassware.”

A poster promoting the first Downton Abbey film with a Cumbria Crystal Grasmere wine goblet

The Grasmere collection was one of the earliest, created in 1976, the same year as Cumbria Crystal was established by Lord and Lady Cavendish, of Holker Hall, and a small group of local business people. Lady Cavendish, herself an artist, was involved in the collection’s design and refinement.

Their artisan workforce was initially recruited from Stourbridge, historically the heart of the English crystal industry. The current staff are their successors, still mouth-blowing the crystal and hand-cutting it on diamond wheels, both processes demanding intense concentration and skill developed over many years.

Grasmere is not the only collection with a claim to fame, however. Staff at British embassies and consulates around the world bring out Cumbria Crystal Helvellyn range for formal occasions. The company has royal customers, is the official manufacturer of crystal for Bentley Motors and also supplies David Linley, Fortnum & Mason, Thomas Goode, Spey Distillery, Goviers, Glyndebourne, and luxury jeweller Hamilton & Inches. “It’s a blessing and a curse,” says Chris. “If a high end customer wants luxury lead crystal glassware they will almost certainly come to us.”

Lead glass has been synonymous with grandeur since George Ravenscroft invented it in the 1670s. The revolutionary new material proved ideal for decorative embellishment and cut-glass became, for a time, the exclusive property of fashionable society.

By 1800, two glass-cutters from Dudley and Stourbridge made it more generally affordable, harnessing steam power to drive their cutting lathes. This technological advance allowed glass to be cut more deeply and intricately, led to the tasteful product we know today and a fashion that swept across Europe.

Production is now back in full swing at the Ulverston factory, an unassuming building given the artisan skills and exquisite products to be found inside. Chris, who was head of enterprise at the National Glass Centre in Sunderland, an accomplished glass artist and former teacher and lecturer in craft design and glass, says: “Every piece is made individually by our small, dedicated team of highly-skilled artisans. It takes a long time to develop the traditional skills needed to create pieces that meet our exceptionally high standards, five years to learn glass-cutting and 15 to become a glass blower.”

Chris recently head hunted a highly experienced glassblower from America in response to the unprecedented demand coming out of the pandemic, and the new emphasis on online sales which increased by 400 per cent during Covid-19 and after the website was ‘internationalised’. At present they are building up stock and the only way to increase production is to take on more staff because the process cannot be speeded up. A typical crystal wine glass, for example, is two weeks in the making, involving six separate production processes and numerous quality checks, before it can be graded as Premium Quality. Fifty per cent of the production is rejected for microscopic variations.

Glass can only technically be called crystal if it contains a minimum of 24 per cent lead. The melting process chemically binds the lead into the glass, improves clarity and makes it more suitable for cutting and polishing. “The additional weight changes the refractive index of the glass,” Chris explains. “It bends light more and gives that indefinable diamond-like sparkle.”

‘Batch’, the technical term for the combination of raw materials that gives each glass its particular properties, is composed of the best silica sand, soda, manganese, lime and lead oxide in blends that are trade secrets. During the melting process the batch takes on a vitreous quality after melting in one of two traditional pot furnaces, enclosed handmade ceramic crucibles.

The glass is melted slowly over the course of two days. Every couple of hours, two measures of batch, plus one of cullet and frit, are put into the furnace, in a precise ratio of 70:30. The steady incremental process allows the materials to melt and homogenize, with fewer trapped bubbles. (Cullet is crystal recycled from the previous production, frit is glass shattered into tiny pieces as a result of plunging in cold water from hot.)

The glass is held at 1450°C for 24 hours and progressively cooled to 1250°C over a further 24. The slow cooling – technically called a 'squeeze' – effectively removes microscopic bubbles as the glass shrinks slightly as it cools ready for the week’s production.

The blowing process, spellbinding to witness, awesome in its volcanic intensity, begins with extraction of the molten glass on a long, hollow blowing iron. “Staring into the furnace is like witnessing the visceral activity at the beginning of time,” Chris says, his own eyes diamond bright, “the creation of stunning crystal using heat, energy, raw materials and our artisans' skills.”

Cumbria Crystal makes glassware for Bentley Motors

Then the glass blower, bright face fierce with concentration, works with the team to conjure out of the molten glass something gradually taking shape and form – tumbler, wine glass, vase or decanter. The completed item is slowly cooled overnight in a temperature-controlled kiln, annealing the glass to remove any internal stress introduced during the cooling.

Two days later the decorative patterns are cut into the crystal by hand using a traditional glass-cutters’ lathe. It is a time-consuming technique not used much these days but imparting a level of precision, sharpness and sparkle unobtainable by any other method.

The finished product is a functioning work of art, both identical to others of its kind, yet still uniquely made. Individuality can be detected only by expert, close analysis of the subtle variations unique to hand-craftsmanship, occasional microscopic bubbles indicating the glass was melted in a traditional pot and not an enormous industrial furnace.

Although big names such as Waterford, Thomas Webb, Edinburgh Crystal, Royal Doulton and Stuart Crystal have not survived in their original, independent form, Cumbria Crystal has secured the future of the prestigious English glassmaking tradition which within a handful of years was fast disappearing, keeping alive a great, traditional, English skill.

However, as for many of the heritage industries, recent challenging market forces globally have combined with a skills shortage and increasing energy costs in a perfect storm to which Cumbria Crystal has had to respond, recently writing to customers to explain that it will have to reduce some of its lines.

With no extensive industry network or centrally funded or assessed apprentice training programme, it must invest in its own training which, as seen, is a time-consuming and expensive commitment. “We try to find people who love making for the sake of making and want to learn a skill that is part of our heritage,” says Chris.

Part of that is showing more people how glass and glassware is made. The factory tours have recently resumed after the pandemic, and it is hoped that later this year the company’s legendary bauble-making experience – when visitors get to blow their own glass bauble – will return. Chris adds: “One of my passions is for people to visit and see our artisans at work; if they are on holiday, or live locally, to come and try it for themselves to understand more about it.”

In the meantime, the best way customers can support the continuation of hand-blown, luxury lead crystal in Cumbria is to buy direct from the company.

The onsite shop, in Ulverston, is always a blaze of reflected light from wide range of exquisite crystal glasses, decanters, jugs, tumblers and the rest, all tastefully displayed. Both the shop and the newly updated website offer access to a wide selection of crystal items in different price ranges. They make very special presents that can be passed down, and are especially popular as wedding collections. And there are still families, especially in the USA and Middle East, who buy whole collections for their dining tables.

Chris adds: “It doesn’t cost the customer a penny more to come to us direct and it helps to secure the long-term culture and heritage of this craft in this country.”

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