The Woodland Tannery is an exciting new microenterprise based on Scotland’s rich history of leather tanning and forest management.

Our highly sustainable venture relies entirely on natural materials sourced locally such as oak, spruce and willow bark from local Estates and provides employment for members of our community. Our tannery, unlike many others, uses only natural materials based on  traditional recipes to tan our leather utilising wild and farmed deer hides, sheepskins from local farms and smallholders and fish skins from Scotland’s finest smoke salmon suppliers.

Sustainability is at the heart of what we do at our artisan tannery. Unlike most large scale tanneries we produce no harmful waste and use the small quantity of bi-products from our traditional tanning method to nurture the local soil. Throughout our tanning process we use only naturally sourced barks and oils which become mulch to nourish the soil and re-balance the pH of acidic soils found in coniferous woodlands.
Our leather does not come into contact with any harmful chemical so is kind to your skin and is kind to the soil when your product comes to the end of it’s life.

Our heritage is very important to us at the Woodland Tannery. We aim to rediscover and maintain traditional tanning knowledge from an era when tanning was a highly sustainable practice, especially in the local area. Through working with experienced tanners, museums and accessing archival records we have rediscovered the age old practice of bark and peat tanning, which was practised up until the 19th century in Fife and Perthshire and is an important part of Scotland’s history.