A Tale of Rushes, Rivers and Revival

For at least three centuries, the Rivers Nene and Ise have sustained a distinctive rural craft industry based on the harvesting of rush—both Bull and Common Club. Along the meandering stretch between Islip and Thrapston, and further through the Nene Valley toward Rushden and Rushton—villages named for a landscape long shaped by the rush industry—the river’s slow channels, marshy banks, and seasonally flooded meadows created ideal conditions for rush growth. From these wetlands, the reeds were cut, dried, and fashioned into practical goods that once played an indispensable role in everyday life: floor coverings, baskets, chair seats, and mats that found their way into homes, chapels, and inns throughout the region.

The character of this industry is inseparable from the landscape itself. Here, the Nene and Ise flow through a broad, low-lying corridor where water lingers in backwaters and gravel-edged margins, creating an ideal habitat for rushes of even height and quality. The geography has altered little since the medieval period, and it is likely that local households were cutting and using rushes long before written records appear in the eighteenth century. Place-names reinforce this long continuity: nearby Rushden is thought to mean “the valley or hill of the rushes,” while Rushton, a few miles east of our workshop, shares a similar etymological root - linking the material directly to the settlement pattern of the valley.

The Loveday Family

In the local village of Islip, the bond between river and craft is well documented by the history of a single family—the Lovedays—who sustained the trade through successive generations. They were not the only rush-workers in the parish, but they formed a steady nucleus of skill and knowledge, and their name became synonymous with the craft locally. As the industry grew during the nineteenth century, others joined the work, and in harvest season additional labourers came from neighbouring villages to help with cutting and baling of bolts. The presence of such established craft families lent the industry a rare resilience at a time when many other rural hand trades were already in decline.

From river to interiors

Rush-work cycles followed the rhythm of the river. Cutting took place in late summer, when the stems were at their strongest, and harvesters stood knee-deep in the shallows, slicing the plants close to the riverbed with a curved hand-scythe. The bundles were floated to the bank, lifted ashore, and laid out to dry in the sun before being stored for winter use. Preparing the rushes demanded as much skill as the harvest itself: bundles that dried too quickly became brittle, while poorly sorted material weakened the finished work. Once cured, the rushes were graded by thickness, length, and flexibility—broader stems reserved for mats, and finer ones for chair seating.

Weaving usually took place indoors, where family members could work for long hours with a steady supply of prepared material. Much of the labour was repetitive but exacting—peeling, twisting, and softening the rushes before the weaving itself could begin. In many households, several people took part at different stages, making the craft both a domestic and an economic pursuit. This integration into family life gave the industry a particular resilience during lean agricultural years, providing an income drawn from local resources rather than from seasonal hirings or the uncertainties of farm tenancy.

These goods found ready buyers both within the parish of Islip and in nearby market towns such as Kettering, Thrapston, Oundle, and Wellingborough. Pub floors, church porches, dairies, and sculleries all made frequent use of rush matting, which was easy to keep clean, naturally insulating, and inexpensive to replace. Chair seating, in particular, provided a steady trade, with woven rush seats valued for their comfort and ease of repair. In this way, the craft was woven into the practical economy of everyday life rather than the spheres of luxury or ornament.

An enduring tradition

The decline of the industry in the early twentieth century reflected broader changes in the domestic environment rather than any shortage of skill or raw material. Factory-made flooring, linoleum, and manufactured seating gradually displaced cottage-made equivalents. Yet the craft did not disappear entirely. The Lovedays were still cutting rushes in the first quarter of the century, and specialist chair-makers continued to source rush from the Nene Valley long after local weaving had diminished. The material itself endured, flourishing in the same shallows and reed-fringed margins as always; it was only the cultural context of its use that had shifted.

This persistence has allowed the tradition to survive, if quietly, into the present day. In recent years, there has been a renewed interest in plant-based craft materials, sustainable making practices, and the cultural history of local trades. Far from reappearing merely as an antiquarian curiosity, rush-working has returned as part of a broader conversation about environmental stewardship and the revival of landscape-based skills.

The Rush Project today

At Summerfield and Scott, we hope to exemplify this revival through The Rush Project. Our work re-examines the rush not simply as a craft material, but as a living part of Northamptonshire’s wetland ecology. Where the historical trade treated the river primarily as a source of raw material, contemporary makers place equal emphasis on regeneration, careful harvesting, and ecological continuity. The cutting methods—seasonal timing, hand tools, and careful inspection of plant maturity—have changed little, yet the intent is now consciously environmental as well as practical.

The Rush Project demonstrates that this is not a craft lost and later reinvented, but a continuous tradition recontextualised. By drawing attention to the growing environment, the project reconnects skill with landscape, linking present-day practice back to the Nene Valley communities where it began. In doing so, it makes visible a continuity of knowledge that was once simply assumed.

The heritage of rush-working in and around Islip is therefore not a closed chapter, but part of an ongoing story of material, memory, and place. The same species of rush that once furnished cottage floors and public-house chairs now finds a role in contemporary craft and design. The river still offers its annual harvest, and modern makers continue a line of work that reaches back through generations of unnamed local workers to the Lovedays and beyond. What has changed is not the material, but the meaning attached to it: from necessity to heritage, from subsistence to stewardship.

The survival of this tradition shows how deeply rural skills are rooted in landscape. Where the landscape endures, knowledge remains latent, ready to be taken up again when conditions allow. Along the Rivers Nene and Ise, the water still feeds the rush beds, and the craft that once sustained communities continues to offer relevance—linking past practice with present renewal.