Hunting boots to last a lifetime
Bespoke boots are a significant investment, however, they offer protection, comfort and unsurpassable style
Are bespoke boots are good investment? Eve Jones thinks so
Among a rider’s possessions there is none that serves or looks so well as a pristine pair of boots. In most disciplines, riding footwear has evolved in form and function alongside modern manufacturing and fashion but choice hunting ensemble has remained largely unchanged since the early 19th century. Straight cut, English leather boots are considered the most ergonomic and aesthetically accurate for the job.
Correct hunting order is black or brown boots for autumn hunting, black boots with blue and black coats and topped boots with a red coat for hunting proper. While turnout is passably interpreted with popular Spanish cut, zip-backed boots and straightcut, box-calf boots, such as Regent’s Pro Cotswold, which offer an economical style, neither fully match a traditional, heavyweight hunting boot when faced with the rigour of multiple seasons in the field.
A true hunting boot is made to measure out of heavy-duty wax calf, the surface of which can be restored with each wear. Also known as reverse calf, the side of the hide on the outside is from the ‘inside’ of the cow and the fibres are ‘fluffy’. By rubbing polish hard into the fibres, in a process called boning, a flat surface is engineered. If it scratches you can ‘bone’ polish into the split fibres to restore the leather and shine. Former Bicester huntsman Patrick Martin learned how to bone a glass shine ‘bliffing’ in the King’s Troop. “The principle we had to learn was you weren’t bliffing leather you were bliffing the polish on the leather.
You bone the polish to get the shine.” Ideally, one would use the shank of a red deer but any hard, curved surface works. For the boning enthusiast, cow ribs have a smooth curve and deer ribs fashioned to a point can be used for working polish into the stitching and welts.
After routinely polishing his daughters’ hunting boots, farmer Mark Eyers’ talent for a shine developed into a side business, The Boot Man, restoring vintage boots. Eyers created a method of refurbishment that treats and rehydrates the leather of even very old boots. “Not wanting to get rid of a pair of boots is something I come across almost daily. People get enormously attached.” If needed, he sends the boots to be stitched or altered, then to his cobbler before selling or returning them. He has observed a growing market for the fastidiously traditional. A client brought him a pair of nearly new Maxwell’s acquired for just £200 recently. “One of the things that occupies his mind greatly is tabs on the side. One is missing and the other one has been eaten by rats. He wants them replaced and he is very, very firm about that.”
New, made-to-measure boots range from punchy to more-than-your-huntercost prices. However, properly cared for, with trees, they can last a lifetime. Henry Maxwell and Foster & Son will set you back £8,000 and John Lobbs £9,598.80, plus £3,114 for trees. Favourites within the hunting community are Davies, Horace Batten and Schnieder. Specialists in riding boots, with not insignificant yet more attainable prices, their boots will have seen the best sport of recent generations.
The Horace Batten workshop sits in Pytchley country, with walls lined with hunting curios and old boots shaped with experience. Emma, a seventh-generation Batten bootmaker, is at the helm. She spent her childhood weekends fitting boots at hunt kennels with her grandfather, learning by virtue of being there why the boots did or didn’t fit, then at the workshop she would be allowed to cut leather and stick pieces together. Today, they make around 100 pairs of new hunt boots a year, on top of alterations and other boots. Due to a recent surge of demand and the pandemic interruption, the waiting time has increased from eight to 12 months. Various lengthy stages are involved in the process, wetting and drying the leather and so on, so the team works simultaneously on a different parts. Every boot starts with the customer’s needs: injuries, orthotics, pronations in the way that they walk. Leg measurements must account for customer’s breeches and socks and a foot impression records the undulating part of the foot. Paper patterns are cut, lasts are chosen then an insole put to the last. They store a huge array of different lasts. Occasionally, one can
You weren’t bliffing leather but the polish on the leather
be perfect in every way; otherwise, bits are added or taken away to achieve the perfect shape. When the last and pattern correlate, the leather and lining is cut, then closed (handstitched up the back). Wax calf has the fronts stitched in with handmade thread. The uppers (the foot and leg) are pulled over the last and welted to the sole but before the sole is finished and heels built, a fitting is required to ensure any foot and leg adjustments can be tweaked. “Nine out of 10 times it’s just a little bit of the way the leather sits on the leg. I say to customers the boot is only just learning to be a boot. Five minutes ago it was a cow so it wants to learn to be shapely, drop and soften, become part of your leg.” Once the fitting is done, the final stitching is completed. Then there are trees, each crafted uniquely to fill their boot. Batten’s long-time tree maker has retired and they have now brought the work in-house. “They’re £895 but then, where are you going to get hand-made beech trees from? The companies that do it in the UK are zero, basically, and they double the lifespan of the boot.” Treasured, tired and battered boots come back for alterations and refurbishment and the firm gladly takes on the challenge of restoring for owners unable to part with them. Batten has also helped bootmakers who have come across a problem making boots, like blocking fronts or making trees. “We’d hate to see a bootmaker fall by the wayside. So many lovely bootmakers are lost to history, so if we can help someone out, we will.”
Hand-written measurements record the decades of feet that have passed through Batten’s door: hunters, Cavalry officers, even Darth Vadar. Emma Batten hopes the eighth generation – her daughter, aged 10, is showing enthusiasm – will continue to welcome them. When Timothy Batten passed away two years ago, it threw his daughter into the driving seat. “I made the boots, he did all the chit chat. So, to suddenly be in a position where I had to do it all was huge.” Not least as the first lady to steer the ship through an antiquated world. But Emma Batten holds dearly to the traditions laid down by her forefathers. “You can’t have been doing it for the past seven generations and then just give up because it’s hard, or you’re a girl, or whatever reason you might think of. Sorry, but no. Every day we get up and we come and make boots. We do it to the best of our ability and hopefully it makes our customers very happy.”
Stepping into big shoes is something Chris Hunnable understands. The former Olympic eventer and stepson to Rudolf Schnieder of Royal Warrant-holding Schnieder boots has taken a more active roll in the business since Schnieder suffered a stroke last year. “Rudolf’s 83 and he’s so aware of everything going on and
You can’t have been doing it for seven generations and just give up
it is his passion, he’s very proud, like I am of his boots. We’re biased but we think they’re the best in the world.”
Schnieder has more than 200 years of boot making in his family. He moved to the UK 60 years ago, working at Maxwell’s and selling boots from WH Giddens before opening his Mayfair shop and Northampton factory. He bought WH Giddens about 15 years ago, has held the MOD contract to make Household Cavalry jack boots for two decades and counts kings, princes, sheiks, celebrities, sports and hunting people among his customers. He makes off-theshelf riding boots as well as the bespoke, wax-calf hunting boots to measure. These are 100% traditional hunting boots, made from leather sourced in the UK; trees can be made from mahogany, oak, apple, cherry or walnut. “He always said when you fall off and your horse rolls on you, if you’ve got my boots on you won’t break your leg but if you’ve got flimsy, paper leather, zip-up boots on, one, they won’t last you a lifetime and two, you will break your leg.”
Schnieder’s advice, says Hunnable, “is to look after boots like you do your car.