Veldtschoen Variations

I mentioned I'd do a roundup of Veldtschoen boots available today. Here's a quick and dirty summary, which I'll update as I find more information.


Alfred Sargent Selkirk and Kelso

The boots that came in from the cold: Alfred Sargent Kelso, fresh from a tramp through the Medway snow.

These were the classic recent Veldtschoens - note the distinctive 'moustache' shape of the vamp, which doesn't extend to the sole. The Selkirk is the leather sole version. These were discontinued last year, but larger sizes are still available from Tredders and others, and have recently shot up in price to around £200-£250. A pair of Kelso are my Go-to boots, completely waterproof in the recent snow. I have heard there are plans to resuscitate this model: I'll update if and when this happens.

Cheaney Pennine



Again a true Veldtschoen. These cost £270 from RObinson Shoes. This Commando sole is common for military use, and is called the Itshide; sadly, Itshide have ceased production, although Corinium still produce a UK Commando equivalent. These are fine boots, although that's a Country Grain, not a Zug Grain, and most shops that previously sold Sargent seem to have switched.

Shipton & Henneage Pennine


Are these the same boots as the Cheaney? Look it. They don't state they're Veldtschoen, although my guess is that they are. Shipton And Henneage are an old brand, they've never made their own boots as far as I know, but I've seen S&H Veldtschoen from the 1950s. Not sure who makes these, but I've read that Sargent used to supply - but proved too unreliable. They cost £249 from Shipton & Henneage. Note that, like the Cheaneys, these have a different construction to the Selkirk, and the vamp reaches the sole, more like a normal boot. If you like the look of these, subscribe to the S&H mailing list, they regularly have 15% off sales.

Herring Windermere


Again, a true Veldtschoen. Around £250 retail. Made by Joseph Cheaney. Like the Cheaney, these are country grain I believe, not zug - a little smoother. Website is here.

Hoggs Rannoch



Veldtschoen, Commando sole. I like the speed hooks, too; I believe the earlier version, without the speed hooks, is made by Alfred Sargent, while off-the-record reports indicate that this version is made by Cheaney. These seem to come in at the old Sargents price, under £200, from various retailers including SD Workwear; although they're reportedly not as nicely-made as the Sargent, that's a good price.

T Jackson


This comes from a retailer which is active on eBay. Made by Sanders, around £160. Link. Conventional storm welt, not a veldtschoen. They claim these use the same zug grain leathers as the Trickers, presumably from Horween. Note these have a different shape from both the Sargent and the Cheaney/S&H/Windermere.

Crockett & Jones Snowdon

Veldtschoen construction, but conventional waxed hide uppers. Again, you can see the military-influenced shape of the vamp, which has that 'moustache' shape like the Selkirks but sits higher on the boot. Lovely boots, which retail at around £385 from retailers like Pediwear


Trickers Lyndhurst
Lastly (yes), the Trickers.
Tricker's have produced classic Veldtschoen in the past - there is a lovely pair in a showcase in their factory shops - see in the comments below for more information; it appears that in the past the Skipton was their Veldtschoen Zug boot, although they've also produced other variants for retailers. The Lyndhurst has much the same shape as the Grasmere, but it appears to be a Veldtschoen construction (the Grasmere has a conventional storm welt) with a full length bellows tongue. It appears similar to the Skipton, but for the latter's false toecap. The range is now discontinued - which makes the stock at Pediwear all the more attractive, at £285, with the old Tricker's quality. They appear to have Size 8 in stock - grab 'em while you can, and remove the temptation, please.

This is an older Tricker's model, with some of the familiar look; at first I was told they were available Special Order, but it now appears they're too busy with standard construction to mess around with Veldtschoen. Grrr.



The Bureau Grasmere Special

Not a Veldtschoen, but a beautiful zug boot. Like many of the Bureau specials, these are pretty keenly priced at £320. The Bureau

On the waterfront: Totectors

I dropped in on Spitalfields stallholder and fellow boot fetishist Steve Sorrell this morning and indulged in a quick spot of mutual footwear appreciation. These Totector boots probably date from the 1950s and have the no-nonsense, sit-up-and-beg look of William Lennon; although the company seems to have used a Blake construction, these look a more conventional Goodyear style. Steve found them in Southampton and was told these were popular with dockers. When we still had dockers. And when we still had a wide variety of boot manufacturers. Totectors were steel toe-cap boots made by the Denton company, based in Rushden, home of many shoe and boot manufacturers; a website about the town has more information on them. Denton prospered throughout both world wars, but finally succumbed to cheap imports in 2004; the Totectors name was bought by a company which now produces safety footwear in India.

Lotus Veldtschoen, guaranteed waterproof!

I've been noticing boots like these - which I'd once call officers' boots - for years, but it is only fairly recently that I've managed to find out exactly what they are, and snaffle a pair for myself.
The short definition is that these are a Lotus Veldtschoen Derby boot; Lotus are the makers, at one time one of the UK's leading shoe manufacturers, and Veldtschoen was one of their key construction. Levi's used to boast "a new pair free if they rip".  Lotus, in much the same non-nonsense vein, were always "guaranteed waterproof."

Popular initially for use in golfing, hiking and hunting, Lotus Veldtschoen were first marketed as officers' boots around 1915, and remained in production until, approximately, the 1980s. They still promote coos and sighs of recognition from old-school shoe salesmen, who often cite the pair in the windows of Cordings (the wonderful tweedy huntingear shop, now apparently owned by Eric Clapton). This particular pair sat in a bucket of water, for many years, with the "guaranteed waterproof" banner above them.

With the aid of Rebecca Shawcross, Shoe Resources Officer at Northampton Museum, I've found out more of the history of these boots. Veldtschoen was a construction always linked with Lotus,  who claimed to have their own distinct variation, shown below, but in fact it's an ancient configuration, dating back to the 15th and 16th century. It was also known as American Stitch Down, and first appears on the documentation trail as Veldtschoen in the mid 19th century, according to Rebecca: "There were British patents taken out for that type of construction in 1843, 1856 and 1860. We believe the term Veldtschoen comes out of the Boer war; Africaans were wearing shoes with hide turned out, and one chap who worked here thinks it's possible that type of construction was taken to South Africa by the Dutch."

Vledtschoen boots didn't arrive as mainstream footwear until World War 1. It appears that one manufacturer, Manfield, had Veldtschoen items in their catalogue by around 1890 but without a doubt the best-known brand for Veldtschoen was Lotus, produced by the company Bostock and Son . The Bostocks were one of the oldest-established footwear families in the Midlands; there are records of the indentures of William Bostock who was apprenticed to Matthew Morell, in 1759; Thomas, his son, was in turn apprenticed to William, and eventually moved to the town of Stafford in 1814, where he worked with his own son and established the business, Bostock and Son. This was the site of the family's factory, shown circa 1930. The company was renamed Lotus Ltd in 1919.

Lotus produced a wide range of footwear - their Delta brand was a popular make of women's shoes - but Lotus Veldtschoen would become their flagship line. They were probably launched around 1912, but they were being heavily advertised by 1915, and were aimed at officers' families - the idea being that their son would withstand the rigours of the trenches better in a pair of waterproof boots. The initial model seems to have been a Derby Boot (shown bottom right in the illustration below) with an apron front and stitching down the toe, a shape most of us know from the Alden Indie boot. Before (and after) marketing them as officers' boots, Lotus also advertised them as suitable for golf, and hunting.

The distinctive aspect of Veldtschoen is, of course, the construction. It is indeed reckoned to be more waterproof than a standard Goodyear Welt, and Lotus's own schematic, below, gives a good idea of how the boots were put together. The definition of a Veldtschoen is that the upper turns outwards, rather than inwards, as it's stitched on to the sole. On the Lotus construction, there is a welt underneath the turned-out upper. You can generally recognise a Veldtschoen pretty easily, by the absence of the visible welt, and the fact the leather, where the welt would generally be, is the same as that of the uppers. The boot on the bottom right seems to have been the first Lotus Veldtschoen design; it was joined by the more familiar Derby boot fairly soon afterwards, perhaps by the 1920s.

Over time, the popular Veldtschoen boot style seemed to become the Durham, shown here, from the 1962 price list; a Derby, with a 'fake" toe cap (two lines of stitching), and that distinctive horizontal stitching at the side. The shoe version is much the same configuration but has moustache-shaped stitching. As you can see, there is no seam that reaches the sole on the side of the boot, presumably to minimise water ingress; the boot features a bellows tongue, designed not to let water in, shown below.

Other manufacturers seem to follow much the same model for their own Veldtschoen, although some have a true toe cap, and differently-shaped stitching down the side. Nearly all Veldt boots seem to feature Zug grain - an especially waterpoof leather, with an applied pebble grain, produced by the Martins tannery, and then later Bridge Of Weir, I believe.

 Bellows tongue:

Lotus golf shoes, in the export catalogue, 1952. Again, you can see the Indy-style construction of the other variant, which is a similar shape to the very first boot.

Here is my example of the Stirling Shoes. These were purportedly 1940s, although I reckon they're slightly later. Still totally waterproof, as are the boots at the top. I've had these resoled recently.











Toe caps, and the distinctive veldt look, on the Durham:

 THese two zug styles, the Stirling and the Durham, were produced  essentially unchanged, from the 1920s right through to the 1980s. A friend of mine knows a serviceman from the 1950s with a pair of the Stirling Shoes, still perfectly buffed, which continued to be de rigueur for officers in the 1960s and beyond. There are a variety of other makers who produced similar styles, including Joseph Cheaney and Crocket and Jones.

This is a nice pair of Veldtschoen Officer Boots I saw today in the RRL showroom on Mount Street, priced at £550. There's no maker's name, but these look similar to Crockett and Jones designs of the 1950s. Coincidentally, RRL have collaborated with C&J for Veldtschoen boots in the recent past, and even these newer boots seem to have acquired significant collectors' value, too.

Prices for Veldt footwear seem to have shot up recently; I aim to do a piece on available models later, but some of the best, affordable boots in this coniguration were the Alfred Sargent Selkirk and Kelso. These have gone out of production following the recent AS changes, although I know retailers are trying to organise a new run. As for Lotus themselves, the company continued to grow in the post World War II period; Lotus employed over 2,000 people in 1950, while the factory also supported many other local industries. There are factory shots here and here.

The company seemed to start losing its way after the last of its founding family, James Bostock, retired in 1970. Ownership changed hands several times - as cheaply-made, disposable footwear started to become  the norm. Most Lotus production was switched to Bridgend in Wales in 1996, and the factory was finally bulldozed in 1998. Deadstock pairs of Stirling Shoes do pop up, as before mentioned they were still in production in the 1980s, although in its final days Louts apparently survived by producing footwear for Marks and Spencer ( in the days when they proudly boasted of the British origins of most of their footwear and clothing). Nowadays, the Lotus name survives as a kind of zombie brand, applied to shoes made in India and elsewhere. Recentlly, I've seen supposedly deadstock brogues appearing on eBay and I suspect these, despite their British look, originated overseas.

Despite the demise of Lotus, there's still a reasonable supply of well-made, new British Veldtschoen and similar boots. You can still go hiking or camping and keep your feet dry. I'll cover these soonish, and will also update on good places to get your own Veldtschoen shoes and boots resoled.

Thanks to Ben L, and Rebecca Shawcross of  Northampton Museums and Art Gallery.

The William Lennon Factory, Stoney Middleton

 

Thirty years ago there were three shoe manufacturers in this beautiful village in the Peak District. Now there's just William Lennon and company. They were well worth the four hour trip up North. 

As anyone who's seen them will attest, William Lennon boots have a rugged beauty all their own (I'm wearing mine now, and I make a hell of a lot of noise running up and down the stairs). Several of the world's boot manufacturers market themselves as workwear brands: William Lennon do precious little marketing, but they're workwear good and proper, and in the last decades they've focused on mill workers, farmers and foundry workers. Lovingly crafted, they embody a distinctly British aesthetic: what used to be call Sit Up And Beg, un-styled, functional, quirky and timeless, like a Morris Minor or Land Rover SWB.

Most people here will be familiar with traditional British boot or shoe construction, like the Goodyear or military-style Veldtschoen. William Lennon offer something completely different, a unique construction which goes back to an old German style of boot, made with wooden pegs. Walking around the factory is like a history lesson – one that invokes dozens of names of defunct brands, as the world turns to cheap Chinese or Indian-made footwear. While the company – overseen by Les Lennon, grandson of the founder, and directors Dan Walker and Libs Slattery - is busy, you sense it's a constant struggle sourcing supplies. In the past their rough-out leathers came from Hull; now it comes from Switzerland. Zug grain used to come from the Bridge of Weir Tannery – now it comes from Horween in Chicago, as does nearly all of the waxy, chrome-tanned leather used for the uppers, which previously came from the Fitzroy Tannery in Australia. Sole leather is vegetable tanned, and still comes from a company in Northampton. Commando soles, a staple of British footwear, came from Itshide – a historic company, which apparently went through several owners in the last decade before moving to Bulawayo and ceasing trading. So now Lennon have sourced replacements from Viberg and Corinium. At the same time, this constant change represents an opportunity: Lennon picked up many new customers when they returned to making Shepherds' boots after the last major manufacturer, Tebbutt and Hall, ceased trading.

The company was founded by William Lennon, an orphan from Manchester, who moved to the area as an apprentice to Higginbothams, one of three boots manufacturers in Stoney Middleton. He set up his own company in 1899, with the Mason brothers, manufacturing and repairing; William moved into the present building, an old corn mill, in 1904, buying it in 1926. The factory was powered by paraffin until electricity came to the village in 1933, and throughout the firm's history it's specialised in miners' and industrial boots. 


 

Most of the machinery is over 100 years old. This is a Rapid Standard Brass Screw machine, made by British United Shoe Machinery in Leicester. This design, which evolved from the old wooden peg designs, appeared around 1905, and is the key to Lennon's distinctive construction. The machine clamps the leather sole to the leather outsole, and puts a threaded brass screw all the way through, sandwiching the upper in between and making a watertight seal – the construction, say Lennon, is stronger than the Goodyear welt for industrial boots. The world population of these machines numbers five; two here, one in Cornwall, one in Australia and one in New Zealand.

The boot comes out like this. Interesting to see Blake construction has such a rich heritage; I've always associated it with trendy Italian-made shoes that you can't get resoled (readers here might sense echoes of an old grudge, apologies, I'm a metal rat). You won't have a problem with these - Lennon will resole them for you. And as you will see later, their boots start coming into their own at a time when most boots are heading for landfill.

After the boot is put together, the Hercules Levelling Machine smooths off all the burrs. 

Here Les Lennon demonstrates a third machine, acquired relatively recently, which makes the heels. Lennon's own version had worn out - this machine came from Rice's, who made football boots, most notably for Derby and England centre forward Steve Bloomer. Les bought this machine, which had been rebuilt by Fred Hawkes Engineering, after Rice's owners retired, and acquired a scrapbook-full of memorabilia devoted to the footballer, who is still the object of almost religious devotion in Derby. 

We didn't discuss this machine; perhaps it's not unusual enough, I presume it's used to sew the uppers. 

Lennon director Dan Walker with one of the older, maple lasts

Lennon Lasts

Lennon use just three styles of lasts; the 88 Shepherds last, the WWII Army Last, and the 2181, or B5 WW1 Service Boot last.

The 88 Shepherds last has a distinctive upturned toe – favoured by farmers and hill-walkers. The Hill boots have a beautiful, heavy configuration, where the laces extend to the toe and eliminate the flex point at the tab. These are boots made for serious wear. 

Les Lennon with the Hill Boot. 

... and the last itself. 

But as you can see, the last is also the basis for the Hill shoes which, but for the upturned toe, are quite trim. This is lovely zug grain, from Horween, and looks just as fine quality as that used by Tricker's.  Note that what looks like a quarter brogue toe cap is actually a kind of quarter brogue strip. Neat!

 

More hill boots. Not so much evocative of a Morris Minor - maybe a Churchill Tank or Victorian Steamroller is a more appropriate stylistic comparison. 

The WWII or Army Last is used in several designs; in a black pebble grain, it is used for Ammo Boots, popular with WWII army re-enactors. And it also forms the basis of Lennon Derby boots. I own a pair of these; they have attracted more compliments from people on the street than any other boots I've owned. From the side, they look solid; from above, especially looking down on them, they look very chunky indeed. But at the factory I discovered that after 18 months of hard wear, the toe reinforcement softens and they assume a subtly different shape. It can be possible to order the boots without toe reinforcement, and again the shape is slightly sleeker – although this can only be done with thicker leather, or else the toe will collapse and look like a slipper!

The last itself. Below, you'll see an example without toe reinforcement, plus a worn-in example, which look less chunky. Les proclaims that the toe protection on the basic Derby is excellent, nearly as good as a steel toe cap!

This worn-in example is back at the factory for resoling. Note how much more compact the toe looks than the new example, simply because the toe reinforcement has flexed or worn in with wear. Being a Blake construction, the sole on all these boots is fairly trim around the upper.

The 2181 Last, & the B5 WWI boot. 


A very distinctive, but compact shape. The lasts, by the way, were all made in Northampton, many of them by Whitton's.

There are many more details of Lennon's fascinating history to be discussed; but I think this will do for now. I'm looking forward to seeing my own Lennon Derbys wear in - for these are the epitome of shoes that look better with wear. I'm encouraged to see the factory looking busy; the company is at something of a crossroads, I feel, still producing cheaper boots with vulcanised soles for workers, while slowly expanding production of what they call the niche, retro products. I can't think of many boots that are as evocative, and if it takes urban hipsters to make them prosper, then bring 'em on, I say...

Thanks very much to Libs, Dan and Les for their hospitality. You can buy directly from William Lennon; their website is at www.williamlennon.co.uk