Carved by hand — every single cut

Ted Garrow has carved birds on a hill farm above Church Stretton for over forty-five years. After all that time, he can still see the bird in the block clear as day — exactly where each cut wants to go. The trouble is the holding: his hand can no longer close around the knife and keep it true.

Rheumatoid arthritis has fused and swollen Ted's knuckles, and the gouge slips from his grip. He can still see every bird. He just can't hold the knife to set it free anymore. So this is his final batch. Every bird here was cut by his own hand. When his hands seize for good, there are no more.

What makes a hand-carved bird feel so different from the ones in the shops?

• It's actually carved. Most "carved" wooden birds are resin-cast (no grain) or machine-routed (no tool-marks). This is cut from a single block of lime, by hand.
• You can feel the gouge. Run your thumb up the back — the little flats and ridges are the proof a hand, not a machine, made it.
• Read out of the wood. Forty-five years taught Ted's hand to follow the grain and set each cut true — the part no machine has ever managed.
• One of one. A knife in a hand can't repeat itself. The tilt of the head and the catch of the eye are yours alone.
• Milk-paint & limewash finish. The traditional decoy look, softly distressed, so it sits like it's always been there.
• Mounted, ready to perch. On its own turned post — windowsill, shelf or mantel. No feeding, no watering.