Every sea glass ring in the Feather & Frost collection begins long before it reaches our Midlands studio with the sea itself, and with the people who know the best places to find it.
WHERE OUR GLASS COMES FROM
We work with trusted, specialist collectors who gather glass by hand from the British coastline.
The Cumbrian Solway Coast
The Solway Firth sits on the northwestern edge of England, where Cumbria meets the Irish Sea. It’s a quieter, less well-known stretch of coastline, wilder than Seaham, and less travelled by collectors. The glass found here reflects the maritime and industrial history of the region: old bottles, fishing communities, coastal trade routes stretching back centuries. It tends to come in earthy greens, warm ambers, and the occasional brown piece with genuine Victorian character.
Seaham, County Durham
Seaham is one of the most celebrated sea glass beaches in the world, and for good reason. The shoreline here still yields glass from the old Londonderry Bottleworks, which produced tens of thousands of hand-blown bottles a day before tipping waste glass into the North Sea over a century ago. Seaham is one of only a handful of places on earth where you can find “end-of-day” multi-colour glass, pieces made from swirled leftover molten glass at the close of a factory shift. These multi-colour pieces are genuinely rare, and when I find them, they become some of my most distinctive rings.
Folkestone, Kent
Folkestone sits on the southeastern tip of England, where the English Channel meets the Strait of Dover, one of the busiest stretches of water in the world, historically and today. The glass found on these beaches reflects centuries of maritime activity, cross-channel trade, and coastal industry. I source from a group of local collectors who know this coastline particularly well, and what comes from Folkestone tends to surprise, softer pastels that you rarely see from northern beaches, and occasionally multi-colour pieces that suggest a glassmaking history of their own.
HOW IT’S SOURCED
Specialist collectors gather glass by hand from these beaches. We don’t collect every piece myself, and we think it’s important to say so honestly. What we do is sort carefully through what comes to us, selecting only the pieces that are well-frosted, properly smoothed, and right in shape and size for a ring setting. A lot gets set aside. Only the best pieces make it to the bench.
WHAT HAPPENS NEXT
Once a piece of glass arrives in the studio, we work around its natural shape rather than cutting or altering it. The glass guides the design. We make the bezel to fit the piece, not the other way around. Each ring is forged by hand in our studio using 100% recycled sterling silver and fine silver, and finished individually. The result is a ring that exists nowhere else. When it’s gone, it’s gone, because the glass that made it came from a specific tide, on a specific beach, and there will never be another piece quite like it.
A NOTE ON AUTHENTICITY
All sea glass used in Feather & Frost rings is genuine beach-found glass, naturally frosted by the sea over many years. We don’t use tumbled, manufactured, or artificially frosted glass.