About Written in Silver
Written in Silver is a small handmade jewellery studio in West Cornwall. We make pieces in sterling silver, with semi-precious stones, the occasional touch of gold, and sea-glass collected from the local beaches. The studio is two people: the maker, who was a teacher in her previous career, and her husband Steve, who handles the bookkeeping side and was an educational psychologist before we moved.
Why Cornwall
We moved from Somerset to West Cornwall in 2008. The move was deliberate — a chance to live closer to the sea, slow down the pace of work, and try a different kind of career. The cottage we found had a kitchen large enough to fit a workbench, which seemed like a reasonable enough excuse to learn silversmithing properly. The bench is still there, in the same kitchen, eighteen years later.
West Cornwall has been the right place for the work. The light is exceptional — bright but soft, the kind of light that shows up exactly what a polished surface looks like. The coast supplies sea-glass and (legally collected, on a small scale) the kind of rounded sea-pebbles that occasionally make it into a piece. And the slow pace of West Cornwall life — quieter than tourist Cornwall, easier to find space to think — fits the work of small-batch handmade jewellery.
What we make
The core of the studio is small-batch silver jewellery. We work primarily in sterling silver, with occasional gold for special-order pieces and bespoke commissions. The stones we use are semi-precious — amethyst, citrine, moonstone, labradorite, lapis lazuli, sometimes a single peridot or garnet. Where we use sea-glass, it's almost always Cornish sea-glass we've collected ourselves over years.
Each piece is designed and finished by hand using traditional silversmithing techniques: piercing, sawing, filing, soldering, hammering, polishing. We don't use cast pieces. The work is slower than commercial jewellery production, and the pricing reflects that — but the result is a piece that's genuinely one-off rather than a unit produced at scale.
How long a piece takes
From design sketch to finished piece, a typical one is two to three weeks of work spread across the studio schedule. We don't sit in the kitchen for 14 days straight on a single pair of earrings — the work is interleaved across multiple pieces in different stages.
A typical pair of textured-silver studs, for example, might involve: cutting blanks (Monday), texturing and shaping (Tuesday), soldering posts (Wednesday), filing and pre-polishing (Thursday), final polish (the following Monday), inspection and packaging (Tuesday). Each step is short but they need to be done in the right order, with cooling and curing time in between.
How we work with you
Most pieces are made to order. The collection on the website is a guide to what we make and what we have stocked at any given time, but for most pieces we begin work after you've placed the order. The lead time is usually 2–3 weeks for a piece in our existing design range, longer for bespoke commissions (4–6 weeks typical, longer for major commission pieces).
Bespoke commissions go through a small process: a sketch consultation (often by email with photos for inspiration), a written quote, a 50% deposit to start work, a photo of the finished piece before dispatch, and the final invoice before delivery. We're happy to talk through ideas before you commit.
About the practice
We don't run wholesale to retailers; what we make is sold direct from the studio or via a small number of carefully-chosen Cornish galleries. The pace would be impossible to maintain on a wholesale model — what we lose in volume we keep in quality and in the relationship with the people who end up wearing the pieces.
The studio is not open to the public on a drop-in basis (the cottage is also our home), but we welcome visitors by appointment. If you're in West Cornwall and would like to see pieces in person before buying, or to talk through a commission, just write to us a few days ahead and we'll arrange a time.
Get in touch
Email [email protected], or phone 01736 740 663. We answer most messages within a couple of working days; the phone is best in the mornings during studio hours.