The Ebor Jetworks Ltd

Whitby Jet Worker, Lapidary and Researcher

Open to the public

Yes

Provides courses or training

Yes

Available for craft fairs

Available for educational events only

Contact

138 Church Street
Whitby
North Yorkshire
England
YO22 4DE

The Ebor Jetworks

t: +447736199346

e: [email protected]

http://www.eborjetworks.co.uk

About

Sarah Caldwell Steele is a practising Whitby jet worker, researcher, and Curator of Jet at Whitby Museum. Based in Whitby, she runs The Ebor Jetworks, a traditional jet workshop dedicated to sustaining the skills and knowledge of Britain’s historic jet industry.
Sarah has worked Whitby jet for over forty years. Her craft practice centres on traditional lapidary techniques used to cut, shape and polish this unique fossil gemstone, continuing a working tradition that once made Whitby the global centre of jet jewellery production.
Alongside her work as a maker, Sarah is internationally recognised for her research on jet and related black gem materials. Trained as a geologist at Durham University and a Fellow and Diamond Fellow of the Gemmological Association of Great Britain, she specialises in the identification and interpretation of jet within archaeological and gemmological contexts. Her current doctoral research argues that the practical knowledge of makers—developed through the tactile processes of cutting and working the material—is essential to correctly understanding jet artefacts from the past.
Through her workshop practice, curatorial work, and research, Sarah advocates for the recognition of jet working as both a living heritage craft and a specialised body of material knowledge. By combining traditional making with scientific and historical investigation, she works to ensure that Whitby jet remains not only a museum object, but a material still understood and worked by contemporary craftspeople.