Eltham Leather Crafting Workshop From £75: Naoum Sayegh

LeatherCraftSessions is a one-teacher leather crafting workshop run by Naoum Sayegh from his home studio at Flat 1, 2 Grove Place, SE9 5AL, London, a 10-minute walk from Eltham station. Public places are sold through ClassBento at £95 for one guest, £90 each for two, £85 each for three, £80 each for four and £75 each for five. The booking calendar lists Saturday and Sunday sessions, starting at 10am or 3:30pm.

Sayegh's own account of how this started is short and specific. He picked up leatherwork during the Covid lockdowns and was hooked quickly. Growing up in Aleppo he was always making things, mostly through his scout group, and he found that teaching other people to make things gave him more pleasure than the making itself. Moving to London, he wanted to recreate that feeling in a smaller space.

Leather suited the constraint. A cutting mat, a stitching pony, a few punches and a roll of hides fit into a flat in a way that a pottery wheel or a forge never would. That is the honest picture of this workshop: you are working at a table in someone's home, not in a converted warehouse, and the group never grows beyond five people around it.

Reviewers keep mentioning the hosting rather than the tools. Recent ClassBento write-ups from September and October 2026 describe fresh fruit and drinks laid out for students, a wide spread of leather colours to choose from, and a teacher who is patient without hovering. The card holder class alone carries 23 reviews, every one of them five stars.

The class list embedded on leathercraftsessions.co.uk is longer than most London studios offer. Single sessions cover a card holder, a smaller card holder, a small pouch, a dog collar, a belt, a passport holder, a glasses case, a travel tag and a rabbit or cat mask. There is also a session that turns old Louis Vuitton canvas into new pieces, plus a bra and a unisex harness.

Then come the series, booked as two sessions because the items need more stitching and assembly than one sitting allows. These cover a wallet, a pouch, a purse and a travel holster. A separate sandal-making series sits at the bottom of the list, and at least one student who finished a passport holder wrote that the shoe-making course would be the next one they booked.

Whatever you pick, the official booking page says sessions run three to four hours depending on complexity, with breaks every couple of hours. You learn punching, cutting, edging, skiving, burnishing, stitching, finishing and embossing, the last of which is how most people personalise their piece with initials pressed into the grain rather than printed on top.

Sayegh works with full-grain, vegetable-tanned leather from three sources, and the booking page names each one. The cow leather comes from Derbyshire and is chosen because it ages well. The goat leather is imported from France and is valued for durability. The kangaroo comes from a Derbyshire tannery and is the lightest of the three while staying strong, which makes it a good choice for a slim card holder.

His made-to-order hound collars, which he sells through Etsy rather than in class, use different stock again: leather from Walpier in Tuscany and Splenda in Barcelona, cut 45mm wide, in black, red, brown, tan or yellow with brass, silver or gunmetal hardware. Looking at those listings before class is a useful way to decide which colour and buckle finish you want.

For a first visit, the dog collar is the strongest choice on the list. It is the project Sayegh clearly knows best, since he sells collars of his own, and two separate October 2026 reviewers came home with collars they described as built to last. Measure your dog's neck carefully before you go, because a collar that is a centimetre out is the one mistake you cannot fix later.

If there is no dog in your life, the passport holder is the next best pick. It is large enough to practise a long run of saddle stitching and small enough to finish with time left for embossing. One reviewer and a companion made a matching pair, which works well for a couple who travel together and want the same piece in two different leather colours.

Skip the two-session series as an opening booking. Committing two weekend slots to a wallet or purse before you know whether you enjoy hand stitching is a poor bet, and the single sessions teach exactly the same techniques. Come back for the wallet once the card holder has convinced you that you want a harder project.

Bookings run through ClassBento, either on its own site or through the widget on the official booking page. The listed dates are all weekends, with a morning slot at 10am and an afternoon slot at 3:30pm, and they stretch from late October 2026 into February 2027. Public classes take one to four guests, and a private booking can go to five.

The pricing rewards groups, which is worth knowing if you are planning a birthday or a small team outing. One person pays £95, but four friends together pay £80 each, and a full table of five pays £75 each. ClassBento's terms let you cancel or reschedule free of charge up to three days before the class, and bookings close 24 hours before each date.

Larger groups and companies are handled separately. A corporate events page on the official site offers onsite bespoke workshops for team building and brand activations, including leather gifts carrying a company logo. Sayegh also takes custom requests through the contact form, so if the item you want is not on the list, it is worth asking before you assume he cannot teach it.

If the Eltham weekends are full, the nearest sensible alternative stays inside the Royal Borough of Greenwich. ANGEL London, the handbag label founded by designer Angel Adeniyan, teaches from a studio on Harrington Way in Woolwich and sells its classes through CraftCourses. Its leather cardholder and keyring workshop costs £50 and lasts two and a half hours, with dates listed from late November into December 2026, including weekdays.

Eltham station is the closer stop, and the official booking page puts the walk at ten minutes. Southeastern trains on the Bexleyheath line call there on the way out from London Bridge, so a morning class is realistic from most of central London without a car. Mottingham station, on the Sidcup line, is the alternative, at roughly fifteen minutes on foot to the studio.

Because this is a private flat rather than a shopfront, there is no sign to look out for. Use the full address on your ClassBento confirmation, Flat 1 at 2 Grove Place, and arrive close to your start time rather than early. Bring your own snacks if you have dietary needs, since the booking page invites students to bring food and drink for the breaks.

A morning class finishes in time for Eltham Palace and Gardens, the English Heritage site on the south side of the town centre. The visit pairs a medieval great hall with the Art Deco house Stephen and Virginia Courtauld built beside it in the 1930s, and after four hours of close stitching the moat bridge and gardens are a good place to stretch your legs.

If the palace is closed or you would rather not pay for a ticket, walk up Well Hall Road to Well Hall Pleasaunce instead. The free park keeps a Tudor barn and a moated garden, and it sits close enough to Eltham station that you can finish there before catching the train home with your new card holder or collar.

LeatherCraftSessions publishes no phone number, so questions go through the contact form on leathercraftsessions.co.uk. No experience is needed, and all tools, leather and patterns are supplied. The studio address is Flat 1, 2 Grove Place, SE9 5AL, London. If you want somewhere to eat on Eltham High Street before an afternoon slot, ask the Karpo APP for a lunch spot near the station.