Jacobean

Jacobean is the first brand name English pipe makers Leslie and Dolly Wood stamped on the pipes they made by hand after leaving Dunhill. Its run lasted only a few years, so its recognition is low; even so, the continuity between it and the couple's later, far better-known brand Ferndown makes Jacobean a starting point for collectors. Pipes bearing the stamp are regarded as the surviving handful from the workshop's not-yet-settled early period.

Founding the Workshop and Division of Labor

Leslie Wood had learned the trade at Dunhill, on the silversmithing side. Toward the end of the 1970s he founded a silversmithing company called L&J Silverware together with Jimmy Craig; the two letters in the name came from the partners' first names. By the years the Jacobean pipes appeared, Craig had long since left the partnership and the business rested entirely on the Wood couple. Wood was still doing contract silverwork for Dunhill and other manufacturers at the time; so Jacobean is the name of a production squeezed between two jobs rather than a full-time pipe brand.

The division of labor was clear: Leslie turned the bowl (stummel) from the briar block on the lathe by hand, the body went into oil curing, and polishing and final touches fell to Dolly. Most of the pipes bear a silver band that reveals Leslie's real specialty. The one clear difference from the Ferndown period is in the mouthpiece: Jacobean pipes were fitted with ready-cast ebonite mouthpieces, while in the later brand mouthpieces were cut and shaped by hand from rod.

Finishes

Because production fell in a transitional period, finish names were never settled and shifted within a few years. Three known finishes are:

• Natural: Light-colored smooth polish; later known as Root.

• Original: Dark brown smooth polish.

• Reo: Red smooth polish.

By what is reported, Leslie Wood initially hesitated to use the name "Root," thinking Dunhill might see it as an infringement; once the firm confirmed the name was free, the finish's name changed. Some of these names carried over to Ferndown as is, while others came to denote an entirely different look under the same name. For this reason, placing a secondhand pipe in time based on finish name alone is not considered a reliable method.

Dropping the Name

The Wood couple had leaned from the very start toward names drawn from English royal history; "Elizabethan" and "Tudor" were also options considered in the same years. Yet the name Jacobean did not find the expected response abroad: buyers unfamiliar with this period of history had trouble pronouncing it correctly. Added to this was a desire for a fresh start that came along with a change in the workshop's location and production method, and the brand was dropped. The Ferndown name that replaced it has come, over time, to represent the entire Wood couple's production history on its own.