Our Yarn

Making a living from fishing and passing down the traditional skills needed from generation to generation is declining in Cornwall. So we wanted to find a weird and wonderful way to keep this family heritage, whilst helping to protect the environment and sea-life for generations to come.

“Grandad Plummer” (Frank) retired from fishing aboard the Tyak Mor and Harvester in St Ives many moons ago. As girls, his two daughters (Rachel and Helen) spent many childhood hours in his “fishing loft”, sat atop bundles of nets whilst he made repairs and maintained his fishing gear. (We can still smell the ropes and feel the nets under our legs!)

Now with grandchildren and several dogs included in the family, grandad always has a bit of rope for when we forget our leads. In October 2021, granddaughter Beth wondered if other people might like “a lead with a story”. From a family meeting around the kitchen table and a few social media posts, Cornish Spliced was born on what would have been granny Virginia’s birthday.

Quickly becoming a small family collaboration between grandad Frank, young Beth, Beth’s mum Rachel and aunty Helen, Cornish Spliced’s products were originally made by repurposing fishing gear from grandad’s fish loft, where it had safely hibernated for about 40 years. This soon expanded to include end-of-life gear from other kind local fishing families, as well as ghost gear scooped up on our beach cleans.

We are proud to give our finds a new lease/’leash’ of life, preventing materials from going to landfill, incineration or re-entering the sea. Nets, buoy lines, anchors, floats, “dans”… each item has its own unique story or previous life, which is written on its label.

Rope is “spliced” to make joins, so we can affix clips, make handles, combine ropes, etc. As a family, we have loved finding out more about grandad’s fishing days, whilst learning how to splice. “Spliced” means “to join, never-ending”, which feels particularly fitting for our family adventure, keeping this special splicing skill alive and passing down from grandad, to daughters, to granddaughter.

We are always on the look-out for other retired and discarded fishing goodies so that we can repurpose it. The more weird and wonderful the better! We also love the challenge that comes with our bespoke item requests.

We are constantly adding to the range with new ideas for products, adding knotting and weaving to the mix, along with incorporating assorted colours, sizes and textures of rope. So do watch this space!

For further info, or to say hello, you can find us on: Facebook/Twitter @CornishSpliced or @Cornish_Spliced on Instagram. You can also contact us at hello@CornishSpliced.co.uk

Thank you for reading about Cornish Spliced. We hope you will join our adventure.