A custom-fitted Ferndown will cost about 55 pounds($90) in sandblast, 65 pounds ($107) smooth, and onward into the 100 pounds ($164) range for made-to-measure (a special on a stock shape) and 150 pounds ($246) for bespoke. These prices represent a 25% discount off national trade prices and include basic silver bands and army mounts. Ferndown, actually the name of Les Wood's house and workshop, is in Bishops's Stortford (in Hertfordshire), and is accessible by car - pretty, classic English landscapes, with manageable traffic in non-rush hours or by train to Sawbridgesworth, or Harlow. They'll pick you up from the former, or you can get a taxi at the latter.
Colin Leeson and Colin Fromm, of Invicta Briars, are in Chatham, Kent, an old seafaring town southeast of London on the Medway River, which joins the Thames estuary seaward bound. Part of the great naval ship-building industry from the 16th century onward, Chatham and environs are also settings in Charles Dickens' Great Expectations, as well as the site of the Royal Naval Dockyard, a restoration of the old wooden ship building yard, with rope spinning, sail making, and other essential crafts of the shipbuilder in progress. Chatham is a fun place to visit; Invicta's pipes make it better.
Take the train and they'll pick you up. Choose an unfinished bowl from a bin and they'll finish it while you wait, or, best of all, they'll cut something for you from a drawing and will finish it that day. If you want to peer over their shoulders, they don't mind. If you prefer to meander through Chatham for a dip into history and return later for your pipe(s), that's fine with them. They'll even draw you a map!
Invicta itself is located in an 1858 building, a historic preservation, The Old Ragged School, a public educational facility for the poor in Dickens' day; today, an immaculate workshop staffed by the Colins, two finishers, and a book-keeper / secretary.
Outside of the London orbit, and with lower prices as a result, Leeson and Fromm do a lot of private-label work for other companies and repair work for a good percentage of pipe shops in the entire country, including some mentioned above, but remain largely unknown outside of England ... so far! They are easygoing, modest guys with no pretensions, whose prices are unbelievably reasonable for work as good as any we've seen: 20 to 30 pounds ($33 - $49) will get you a custom-made finish and mouthpiece on a good piece of pre-cut briar out of the bin. If it's a handmade piece, one of a kind already cut, or bespoke, it'll cost you 50 pounds ($82), or 75 ($123) with silver fittings. Large briar blocks cost them more and drive the price up a bit, but this still has to be the pipe lover's bargain of the century.
Colin Fromm is adept at hand-cutting both English (Charatan-style) free-hands and the Danish style as well. As he worked on some for me, he modified the design as he went. "I think this will work better with a square shank," he said, "and I'll angle the bowl top. If you don't care for it we can always lop the top or round the shank." We didn't. He finished the pipe with a double stain we chose and with two handcut mouthpieces, one tapered and one saddle - "for variety, and just in case you break one in your travels." Within a few hours, Fromm had hand-cut and finished two more bespokes for me, designed first on paper, then made as I watched, while Leeson and the finishers did another six from stock pieces, intentionally chosen by PipeSMOKE to test the whole range. Even the least expensive, with an obvious flaw that had to be filled, is still just what I wanted in finish and shape, and smokes beautifully. An identical shape was rusticated on the spot for my usual traveler's brace.
With all due respect to the other pipemakers, all of whom are friends who have worked very hard to deserve their international reputations, and all of whom make pipes of outstanding quality, Invicta is the company to watch. And now's the time to get yours, while they're heating up, but not yet hot. A PipeSMOKE best buy, and maybe the pipe discovery of the year!
