A Couple of New Additions Now in Stock

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We love finding new walking sticks to add to the site and they usually come about by a customer requesting something that we don’t already sell. We try to get right on it and find the stick needed and we usually succeed. We also like to keep the range on the website fresh, so we are always on the lookout for great quality, interesting walking canes with character too!

My personal favourites are the handmade sticks of which we have just added a very heavy, robust knobstick with a large handle, a height of 96 centimeters and a 3 centimeter diameter shaft. At 730 grams in weight, this stick is definitely more suitable for a man (and a tall well-built man at that!) than a woman.

Like all items on our website, if you order this one before 1pm GMT any day (monday to friday) then it will be dispatched the same day on a 24 hour delivery to all UK addresses. And, like all of the handmade walking sticks, this heavy blackthorn knobstick is a one-off. It is particularly rare for a coppicer to find and cut a piece of blackthorn this long and with such a large diameter without killing the tree, so this stick is very special!

Heavy and Large Blackthorn Knobstick

Heavy and Large Blackthorn Knobstick

Our other new addition is a very attractive beech wood walking stick with a Black Labrador handle, made from resin. We sell a lot of sticks with animal head toppers and the dog heads sell the best. Click on the image below to view it/ buy it.

Black Labrador Walking Stick

Black Labrador Walking Stick

 

Walking Stick Quotes

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Much to my surprise, I haven’t managed to find that many quotes considering
how many people have (for the last thousands of years!) and do use a walking stick. I have included the best
ones below. If you know any quotes, poems, articles or interesting facts please do send them in!

“The best, the most exquisite automobile is a walking stick; and one of the
finest things in life is going on a journey with it”
Robert Coates Holliday

“When you have no companion, look to your walking stick”
Albanian Proverb

That is why, no matter how desperate the predicament is, I am always very much in earnest about clutching my cane, straightening my derby hat and fixing my tie, even though I have just landed on my head.
Charlie Chaplin

$3000 for a walking stick…sounds reasonable.
Scott Disick

Depend on your walking stick, not on other people.~ Japanese Proverb

Some Cropped Walking Sticks at Bargain Prices

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We have had a tidy up at the warehouse and have found some extra short sticks that were unwanted cropped walking sticks. We have just put them for sale on the website in the extra short section. They are all one-offs only but we can of course crop and of the standard length wooden sticks to the size you need. So if you are looking for a stick between 76 and 86cm tall then it’s worth checking out the following page: Extra Short Walking Sticks.
These sticks are all at greatly reduced prices. There’s a bamboo crook handled cane at 86cm, a silver plated cane at 82cm, an anatomical right handed walking stick at 80cm, a lovely Derby cane (which is incidentally discontinued now) at 80cm, a brass handled cane at 76cm and a plain brown crutch cane at 78cm. We also have two collectible, animal topper canes at 74cm, a chrome plated cane on a cherry shaft at 87cm and a smart Derby cane at 85cm. These are all pretty short so please do double check the height required before you buy. To help with conversions between centimeters and inches please use this handy tool on the website: cm/inches converter.
Don’t forget that as long as its a wooden shaft then we or you can crop it too the height required with a fine-toothed hacksaw.

Famous People and Walking Sticks!

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Names, names, names!! Probably the most famous person that carried a stick was Charlie Chaplin with his “Little Tramp” character who carried a bamboo wangee cane. Most people in the western world would recognize the infamous Charlie Chaplin walk with the wangee cane twirling around and a distinctive hat on his head. The Little Tramp character appeared on film for the first time in 1914 and the hat and cane were sold last year in Los Angeles for almost £40,000!

Little Tramp with Walking Cane

Little Tramp with Walking Cane

Another character from more recent times on the television that we get enquiries about is Dr Gregory House in the TV show “House”. Dr Gregory, the protagonist,  is played by Hugh Laurie in the hit American medical drama. In the series, the character’s unorthodox diagnostic approaches, radical therapeutic motives, and stalwart rationality have resulted in much conflict between him and his colleagues. Dr House is also often portrayed as lacking sympathy for his patients, a practice that allots him time to solve pathological enigmas. The character is partly inspired by Sherlock Holmes. A portion of the show’s plot centres on House’s habitual use of Vicodin to manage pain stemming from a leg injury some years earlier, that forces him to walk with a cane. This addiction is also one of the many parallels to Holmes, who was a habitual user of cocaine.

Dr House with Walking Stick

Dr House with Walking Stick

The walking stick he uses looks quite like one we sell, the snakewood Derby cane if you want a similar one!

Some other notables;

Oscar Wilde ‘wore” one; so did the Marquis de Lafayeete and George
Washington; George Bernard Shaw had several; Prince Albert was never
without his; and Queen Victoria had an impressive collection.

King Tutankhamen
In ancient Egypt everyone from royalty to peasants used a cane. King
Tutankhamen had no less than 132 sticks buried with him.

King Henry VII of England carried a multi-purpose cane finished in
gold which contained a perfume dispenser in the top, a pair of
tweezers, two compasses of gold, a footrule of gold, a knife and a
file, and a “haft” of gold.

Louis XIV was never seen in public without his cane, and his court
jeweler actually fashioned one stick for him with twenty-four
diamonds.

Can I Buy a Walking Stick with a Longer Shaft than the one Advertised Online?

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This is another question that we are asked frequently by email and over the phone. And the answer is yes and no! We try and keep a big range of walking sticks so that customers can buy a particular stick with a particular handle at a particular height. We like to be able to offer every combination but sometimes that’s not possible.

The cropping service we offer is to make sticks shorter than advertised but occasionally people want to make the shaft longer. Most of the canes we stock are supplied to us as one piece so that the shank cannot be made longer.

However, we do have at our disposal a number of talented stick-makers who can make virtually anything so it is worth your while to email your requirements and we will see what can be done for you. This bespoke service usually takes only a week or two and is for sticks with wooden shafts only. Please contact us on the following link:

Contact us with your walking stick enquiries

Foldaway Flip Sticks for Holiday Makers

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A customer last week bought one of the foldaway flipsticks to take on holiday to the Dordogne in France this month. She said how perfect they are for going away as they will be going on tours, waiting around in lots of places and sight seeing and it is always handy to have the means to rest your back, legs or feet when you need to.

Her last holiday was in Turkey where her fellow tour members raved about the seat stick and all wished they had one.

Summertime is definitely our busiest time for flip sticks and other seat sticks such as shooting sticks but the flipsticks are better for taking away on holiday as they are small, light and have their own zipped shoulder bag so they are like holding an extra camera.

And think of all the times you would use it? Everywhere where there aren’t any seats free and when you are waiting around.

The foldaway flip stick is available in a fixed height and a height adjustable model in racing green or black. There is a discount if you buy two at the same time and you save on postage too. So, you can buy one for yourself and one for your friend or partner.

Click here or on the image below to have a browse or to purchase a flipstick now!

Foldaway Flip Sticks

Foldaway Flip Sticks

 

If I Order a Walking Stick Online Today will it be Delivered Tomorrow?

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This is an email or phone question that we get asked several times a day and the answer is yes. If you order before 1pm monday to friday, your walking stick order can be delivered to all UK addresses on a next day
delivery. Most parcels will be sent out using the courier company DPD and the rest will be sent by Royal Mail. DPD will send you a SMS text to let you know the 2 hour delivery window so that you won’t have to wait in all day.
So don’t forget to add your mobile number when placing an order with us.
Remember, next day does not include bank holidays and we do not dispatch on a saturday.
We have stock of 99.9% of the walking sticks on our website nearly all of the time, but occasionally we get an order for a next day delivery that cannot be fufilled because the last stick with that order code was just
dispatched. When this happens we will call or email or both to offer an alternative or to let you know when it can be delivered (i.e 2 days later) and refund you the next day postage. We make orders weekly with the eight
suppliers and stick makers we are currently working with so out of stock items are quite unusual.
We also offer a saturday delivery to all UK addresses. So if you make your order on a friday before 1pm you can choose the next working day option for delivery on the following monday or the saturday delivery option for
delivery the next day. Remember, you can also choose a different delivery address as long as there is someone to sign for the parcel.

We have some really lovely walking sticks in stock and ready to send, click on the following link to have a browse today: Go to the Walking Sticks Online Shop

Courier Delivery Information

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This is just a quick post about adding your mobile phone number to your delivery details when you make an order with us.
If you ordering a long walking stick (i.e any stick that is NOT a folding stick) then your order will be sent to you by courier as they cannot be sent by Royal Mail because of their parcel length restrictions.
The courier we use gives the option to text the customer with a delivery time window which is usually one or two hours. This is handy as you can then plan your day around your delivery and not have to wait in unnecessarily.
So, as you fill out the delivery name and address, please include your mobile phone number and an email address as well so that you can track your order too.
Also, as we are an internet company we need to be able to contact you in case of any problems, such as a postcode error or a gate number or something.
We promise NOT to pass on any such personal details, they will ONLY be used for the purpose of fulfilling your order, that is delivering your walking stick in a timely manner.
We thank you for your co-operation!

Walking Sticks Around the World

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We have been in the business of selling walking sticks for eight years now and we have learnt more than we thought possible about sticks and canes from our customers, stick makers and from our suppliers.

One of the areas of particular interest to us is discovering the different terms used and their meaning in other languages. When we first started out, the thing that used to amuse me most (especially when you do a Google Images search) is searching the term “walking sticks” on google.com.

As you have probably come across before, Americans call stick insects walking sticks and this used to cause much merriment in the office. Another one I like is “Puffer” or “Gummipuffer” which translate to ferrule and rubber ferrule respectively. I’m not sure why I find that amusing but I do!

There are such variations for our familiar English walking stick. The french “canne de marche” rolls along nicely but the slovak ”vychádzková palica” is a different story altogether. There’s käveykeppi in Finnish, wandelstok in Dutch and bastone da passeggio in Italian. Wherever you are and whatever language(s) you search in, you are sure to find a huge array of walking sticks online around the world!

We Love Thumbsticks. New Thumb sticks Now In

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These attractive country sticks are available in various different woods. We currently have stock of ash, hazel, chestnut, stag horn handled, junior sticks and wading sticks.

We find the sales usually increase this time of year as the weather starts to improve
and the evenings become longer, bringing on the outdoor season.

The thumbstick is designed to be held with the thumb crooked over the dip of the V
handle and is very popular among countrymen and outdoor types. We have some with
some useful adaptations such as the whistle thummbstick which has a whistle cut
into the stag horn handle. Good for dog-walkers and for calling for help!

Some customers also use thumbsticks at a cropped height of about 36 inches (91
centimetres) to use as a regular walking stick as they find this kind of handle more
comfortable to grip. This may be the case for arthritis sufferers or people with other
problems effecting the hands.

The wading sticks are basically thumbsticks that have been modified to aid fishermen
fishing in rivers and lakes. The end is weighted to prevent the stick from floating (and
floating off down river if you let it go!) and the stick has a lanyard, or long strap, that
can be wrapped around the body. Both adaptations help the fisherman with balance
and prevent him from loosing his stick.

We really love thumbsticks and we have just got some brand new handmade ones in.
The new sticks are made from Hazel, two of which have attractive and unusual twisty
parts caused by honeysuckle growing with the hazel tree. The honeysuckle has been
kept and bonded on to the shaft as it is so beautiful.

Handmade Twisty Hazel Thumbstick

Handmade Twisty Hazel Thumbstick

Hannah comments, ” I love the way thumbsticks are sold and are so popular because
of the natural process that went to produce them. When I walk through a coppiced
woodland, I can see thumbsticks everywhere growing out of the trees, its great. I
particularly like the ones with a taller V handle and the ones that have grown so
perfectly that the stick maker doesn’t need to cut out any material from the handle to
make it comfortable.

Our thumbsticks are long, usually at least 130 centimetres, which enables plenty of
room for personalisation. You can add badges, engraved collars or plaques or some
pyrography. Click on any of the images below or the following link to view the thumbsticks currently available to buy at www.walkingsticksonline.co.uk

Ash thumbstick

Ash thumbstick