IN BUSINESS

or most of his career to date, Owen

Pocklington concentrated on engineering massive industrial structures: tunnelling machines, cranes, oil rigs, furnaces, wind turbines and the like. Recently, though, he has started working at a much smaller scale. Trading as The Plater’s Bench, Owen uses his finely honed skills as a steel fabricator to handcraft stylish furniture and a variety of other bijou domestic items.

If you want to see the results of Owen’s craftsmanship at first hand then all you need to do is turn off Northallerton High Street and take a few steps down Regency Mews, where he and his partner Audrey Wood have just opened a brand new shop-cum-gallery.

CUSTOMISED COMFORT

It’s in honour of Audrey that Owen has named one of his most striking creations: the Audrey Collection of garden furniture. The Audrey Collection is a modular range of elegant chairs, coffee tables, fire pits and grills that can be mixed and matched – or customised – to create whatever layout best suits your needs and the shape of your garden or patio. The handsome chairs and tables are made with matt black steel and responsibly sourced and managed African Iroko hardwood – tough, top quality materials that require minimal maintenance and will last a lifetime – and the cushions are filled with duck down and covered with natural calico.

Not exactly what you were looking for? No problem. If it can be crafted from steel and timber, Owen can make it for you. Bedsteads, bistro sets, bar stools, picnic benches, recliners, rocking chairs and dining tables are all in his repertoire. If you like one of his designs but fancy a version that’s higher, lower, longer, shorter, slimmer or thicker then all you need to do is ask. “The only limitation is your imagination,” is Owen’s motto.

Even if you’re not in the market for furniture, there are plenty of other reasons to drop in at The Plater’s Bench. Owen also produces a variety of smaller domestic items including bottle holders and racks, book rests, picture stands, vases and clocks. As an added attraction he and Audrey will also be using the wall space as a gallery to display their own prints – both are keen photographers.

Whatever catches your eye, you can be sure it’s something you won’t find anywhere else. “I would rather have a business creating individual pieces for individual customers than churn out lots of copies of the same thing. And because I make everything myself, everything’s a limited edition. Let’s face it, there’s only one of me and there are only so many things I can make!”

STEPPING UP TO THE PLATE

Owen was born in Teesside. His family moved to Bedale in 1974, and two years later he started an apprenticeship with Allerton Industries, learning the basics of plating and welding. Keen to work abroad, Owen initially envisaged a job in Holland or Germany but ended up heading to Zambia to work on a project in the copper mines. “It was a bit of an eye-opener for a lad of twenty, a life-changing experience,” he says. “It made me grow up very quickly.”

Back in the UK he continued to refine his skills, but it wasn’t until his brother asked him if he could make him a bedstead that Owen started to think about applying his talents somewhere other than in heavy industry. “Other people saw the bedstead, liked it and started asking me if I could make furniture for them. It took me a while to get round to it, but eventually I took voluntary redundancy from Teesside in 2020 with the idea of setting up my own business.” And the business name? “Well, ‘plater’ is an old shipyard term for the trade of fabricating steel to clothe the skeleton of a ship. I’m proud of my trade, and proud of the heavy steel industry, so ‘The Plater’s Bench’ was a name that appealed to me. And of course I do work at a plater’s bench. It’s an 8-foot by 4-foot bench with a ½ inch-thick steel top. I made it myself – it’s not the kind of thing you can buy off the shelf!”

Even though he’s now working on a smaller scale than he used to, Owen says the skills he’s using are very much the same. “A lot of the job depends on measuring accurately and cutting precisely, and that’s equally important whatever size item you’re making. And yes, working with steel requires a certain amount of strength, but it’s technique, not brute force, that gets the job done.”

His favourite part of the process? “I love the actual fabrication, coming up with ideas and modifying them as I go along. What I don’t want to get involved with is the accounts – fortunately Audrey takes care of all that!” The Plater’s Bench is at 17 Regency Mews, Northallerton. For more information visit theplatersbench.co.uk

“it’s technique, not brute force, that gets the job done.”