A  little more detail…

The May Tree

Hand-Pierced Hawthorn Necklace Made from an Antique Silver Shilling

There is a moment in the British countryside when the hedgerows suddenly turn white.

After the darkness of winter and the uncertain days of early spring, the hawthorn flowers.

For generations, that flowering has marked the arrival of May and the beginning of the brighter half of the year.

The May Tree is my interpretation of that ancient little piece of the British landscape, carefully pierced by hand from an old silver shilling.

The original coin becomes the boundary of the tree. From its base rises a twisting trunk, spreading into branches filled with leaves, buds and tiny hawthorn flowers.

An old coin. A flowering tree. A small piece of May to carry with you.

The May Tree

Hawthorn has many names.

May tree. Maythorn. Quickthorn. Whitethorn.

But perhaps its oldest identity is simply as one of the great trees of the British hedgerow.

For much of the year it can seem almost unremarkable.

Then May arrives.

The branches fill with white blossom and suddenly entire hedgerows appear to have been dusted with flowers.

It is one of those seasonal changes that people have noticed for centuries.

And inevitably, stories grew around it.

Neither Entirely Wild Nor Entirely Tame

Hawthorn has always seemed to live on the boundary.

It grows along field edges, old tracks, lanes and forgotten boundaries.

It separates one place from another.

That position gave the hawthorn a particularly powerful place in folklore.

It became a tree associated with thresholds, protection and the mysterious spaces between the cultivated world and the wild one.

A lone hawthorn could acquire an identity of its own.

Some were treated with extraordinary respect and allowed to remain standing even when the landscape around them changed.

You did not casually interfere with a hawthorn.

When the May Blossoms

The flowering of hawthorn became closely associated with May Day and the return of summer.

Branches of May blossom were once gathered for seasonal celebrations and the tree became connected with fertility, renewal and the awakening landscape.

There is something beautifully simple behind all of that folklore.

People were watching the natural world.

The appearance of blossom meant winter had loosened its grip.

Growth had returned.

The year was turning again.

Flowers Among the Old Silver

I wanted the tree itself to feel as though it were genuinely growing inside the coin.

The trunk divides naturally into fine branches rather than following a rigid symmetrical pattern.

Leaves emerge at different angles and small flowers appear throughout the canopy.

Each flower, leaf and opening between the branches is worked individually.

Look closely and the piece becomes almost like a miniature drawing in silver.

Only instead of drawing the tree onto the surface, I remove the silver surrounding it.

The hawthorn is what remains.

Made from an Antique Silver Shilling

The May Tree begins with an original antique British silver shilling.

The coin shown dates from 1871.  You will receive a similarly very old and lovely coin.

It had already existed for more than 150 years before becoming this necklace.

That matters to me.

I could cut the same tree from fresh silver sheet, but something important would disappear.

An old shilling already carries time within it.

Its surface has been touched, scratched, worn and softened by a life that happened long before it reached my bench.

Rather than melting the coin and erasing that history, I work within the silver that is already there.

The Date Beneath the Roots

Whenever the design allows, I preserve recognisable parts of the original coin.

Here, the date remains beneath the roots of the hawthorn.

1871.

It anchors the tree to the previous life of the silver.

Above it grows something completely new.

I particularly like that relationship.

The past is not hidden.

The new piece grows directly from it.

Hand Pierced at the Hairy Growler Bench

Every May Tree is made slowly by hand.

The design is first worked around the dimensions and character of the original shilling.

Tiny entry holes are drilled into the areas that will become open space.

A fine jeweller’s saw blade is threaded through those holes and the background is removed one small section at a time.

The trunk must remain strong while the branches become progressively finer.

The leaves are shaped individually.

The tiny flowers are formed and detailed.

Bark, leaf veins and floral details are then worked back into the remaining silver before the piece is finished by hand.

There is very little room for haste.

One careless cut can remove a branch that took an hour to reach.

Slow craft is built into the piece.

A Tree of Protection and Renewal

Over centuries, hawthorn has gathered many meanings.

• Protection
• Hope
• Renewal
• Love
• Fertility
• The return of summer
• Thresholds and boundaries
• Respect for the wild places

You do not need to believe the old stories to understand why they survived.

There is something about a flowering hawthorn standing alone in the landscape that still makes people notice it.

Perhaps that is enough.

A Small Piece of the Hedgerow

The May Tree belongs to the woodland and hedgerow world that runs through much of my work.

Not grand nature viewed from a distance.

The smaller things.

A branch leaning across an old lane.

Blossom appearing unexpectedly.

A tree left standing in the corner of a field.

The places we pass repeatedly until one day we actually stop and look.

Those are often the things that stay with us.

Product Details

• Handcrafted from an original antique British silver shilling
• Coin shown dated 1871
• Hawthorn / May Tree design
• Individually hand-pierced branches, leaves and flowers
• Original coin edge retained
• Original date retained where the individual coin and design allow
• Traditional jeweller’s saw piercing
• Fine hand engraved botanical detailing
• Historic wear and character of the original silver preserved where possible
• Individually made and finished at the Hairy Growler bench
• Natural differences in old coins mean every May Tree will be slightly different

From Currency to Heirloom

For more than a century, this silver belonged to another world.

It was struck as money.

Carried.

Spent.

Saved.

And somehow survived.

Now a hawthorn grows from it.

Its roots sit beside the old date while its branches reach upward into blossom.

Old silver carrying one of our oldest trees.

When the May blossoms, the year begins again.Size : Approx 24 mm diameter.