A walk around The New Craftsmen’s London showroom is a journey across the British Isles. Each object is a portal to a place and its making traditions. In one corner of the lofty Arts and Crafts-era building, a spindle-back bench by Bibbings & Hensby transports you to Wales via the region’s Windsor chair making tradition. Suspended over a table nearby is a lamp made from a bird’s nest–like mass of heather by Annemarie O’Sullivan. It whisks you up to the wilds of Scotland’s Orkney Islands, where people have long made household objects from the native shrub. 

Amid these storied pieces, Catherine Lock is sitting at an oak table, drinking tea from a ceramic mug. “In your working day, when you’re glued to technology, holding a handmade cup by a maker you know and from a place...