All our pipes are individually
created by a team of highly skilled artisans,
headed by Mr. Barry Jones, who is widely regarded
as one of the best pipe carvers in the world, with
more than 40 years experience in pipe making.
Mr. Jones learned his skill from
the age of 15 in London and was personally guided
by Mr. Charatan of Charatan Pipe Co., pipe makers
to royalty since 1863. For years he was
responsible for creating the majority of the
famous Charatan shapes and the high standard of
quality.
In 1978, Barry Jones joined
Colonel Kenneth Barnes, then Charatans' managing
director, who started his own pipe company in
Tilshead, Wiltshire, making the Tilshead and James
Upshall premium class pipe, which took it's name
from the Colonel's ancestry, one James Archimedes
Upshall, an ardent pipe smoker, who loved quality
and perfection.
Ever since the company has been
making hand turned, straight grained pipes for the
smoking connoisseur and has gone from strength to
strength gaining fame and the up most respect as
one of the greatest hand made pipe companies.
Pipe expert, Mr. Richard Carlton
Hacker, author of "The Ultimate Pipe
Book" has stated that, "Barry has an
almost uncanny knack of finding the best
concentration of grain. His Upshall pipes are so
distinctive you can immediately spot them in any
pipe rack". It's this grain pattern and
quality that collectors prize so highly.
The raw material we use for
hand-turning pipes is specially selected naturally
dried plateau Briar from Greece. As opposed to the
kiln dried ebauchons, our briar guarantees
lightweight, and tremendous properties for
absorbing heat, as well as tobacco moisture and
ensures a sweet smoke. Plateau blocks of
considerable age, are of added benefit to the real
pipe smoker; a rich mature graining which
infrequently result in a perfect straight grain or
birds eye pipe.
Each block of plateau briar is an
individual piece of nature, which has to be
treated and worked accordingly. The turner's art
is to transform a well seasoned and naturally
dried block into a flawless pipe, which will give
its owner years of smoking pleasure due to its
perfect smoking characteristics and great beauty.
At James Upshall, no part of the
production is trusted to pre-set machines or copy-fraisers.
Each pipe is shaped on a single flat bed lathe by
chisel and the craftsman's artistic skill. Each
James Upshall pipe is the result of perfect briar
quality as well as the skill of the hand-turner,
no two pipes are identical. Nature and man work
together to create the optimal pipe. All models
are old English shapes influenced by the
hand-turner's creative mind.
James Upshall gives a
unique
guarantee on each pipe leaving the workshop. No
pipe bearing the name of James Upshall is marred
by fillings and putty. Scarcity of good quality
plateau briar and the time consumed turning by
hand, limit our production, but we will
always strive to fulfill the growing demand for
James Upshall, quality and tradition at its best.
As always the James Upshall pipe
has been sold in the most prestigious outlets
around the world and has been greatly appreciated
by royalty, lords and celebrities alike. King
Hussein of Jordan, Anwar Sadat, Bing Crosby, Yul
Brynner and more recently Arnold Schwarzenegger,
Robert Wagner and Tom Selleck to name but a few of
the famous names who have helped to cement James
Upshalls' reputation as the Rolls Royce of Pipes.
