Refund policy

Returns

Sometimes it just doesn’t work out. We understand. If you’ve changed your mind and want to return your order, we ask that you contact our sales team and return the item(s) in an unused condition and in its original packaging, within 30 days to:

Lincoln House Ltd.
5 Neville Park
Baltonsborough
Somerset
BA6 8PY

Unfortunately, we aren’t able to cover the cost of returning unwanted items, so the postage cost of returning these items is the responsibility of the customer. Please ensure that you obtain proof of posting as items being returned are the responsibility of the customer until the items reach our offices.

Once the item has been received and inspected by our customer care team, you will be notified that your refund has been issued. Please note the item must be returned with the original packaging, as new, unused, and free of defects.

If you cancel your order before the items are shipped out a refund will be issued right away.

Sterling silver goods, bespoke items and goods sent to non-EU countries are exempt from the terms of the ‘Distance Selling Regulations’. Please contact us by email or phone should you wish to return these items.

These terms and conditions are in addition to your statutory rights.

Damaged or Faulty Goods

In the unlikely event that you receive an item that is damaged or faulty, we can offer a replacement, or full refund, within 30 days of the customer receiving the order. We simply require photographic evidence of the damaged/faulty item with order number.

To return a damaged or faulty item is free of charge, please contact [email protected] with your name, address & order number and our customer service team will generate a shipping label for you.

Once the item has been received and inspected by our customer care team, you will be notified that a replacement item(s) has been despatched to you, or a refund has been issued.

We’re here to help

If you require delivery urgently please call us on 01458 258 458 (from abroad +44 1458 258 458). We will do our best to meet earlier dates.

97%

(76)

(1)

(0)

Superb quality, speedy delivery. Delighted, thank you.

I bought it for my daughters wedding gift because I had always wanted one and she loved it so I am happy

Disappointingly small. The ‘rattail’ turned out to be an incised pattern not a proper rattail.
My search continues.

Dear Marcus Barbor
Thank you for taking the time to review your cutlery. We are sorry for your disappointment, however, no one makes the raised rattail – or ‘proper rattail’ that you are looking for.
The traditional English “rattail” (or “rat-tail”) fork and spoon pattern is one of the oldest surviving flatware forms in Britain, dating from the late 17th and early 18th centuries. The “tail” itself was originally not decorative at all — it was structural.
For early spoons especially, the bowl and handle were often forged separately and then joined together. The raised rib on the reverse — the rat-tail — reinforced that junction and concealed or strengthened the soldered join.
Forks evolved slightly differently, but the same principle applied in many early examples:
• The tines/head were forged separately from the stem.
• The handle/stem was then fire-welded or brazed onto the fork head.
• The raised “tail” on the reverse strengthened the weak point where the neck met the fork head.
• On hand-forged examples, the rat-tail was often hand-drawn with hammer work after joining.
Early English Hanoverian forks from roughly 1700–1750 commonly show a very pronounced rat-tail because the construction genuinely needed reinforcement.
By the Georgian period, metallurgy and forging improved enough that the structural need largely disappeared. The rat-tail gradually became shallower and then decorative only. Around the later 18th century, many Hanoverian forks lost the rat-tail entirely.
Most modern “rattail” cutlery is made completely differently.
Modern stainless rattail forks are usually:
• stamped from a single blank,
• rolled and pressed in dies,
• with the “tail” formed by coining/pressing rather than forging.
The tail today is usually just a shallow pressed ridge because:
1. there is no structural joint to reinforce,
2. deep forging is expensive,
3. modern stainless alloys are much stronger than early wrought silver or iron.
Traditional hand-forged silver rattail patterns still exist today from specialist makers, but they are niche luxury production rather than mainstream manufacture.
If you are searching for traditional Rattail teaspoons (you bought 6 from us) with the raised ridge-you will need to search in the antique market.
There isn’t a single cut-off date when manufacturing techniques changed over, because methods overlapped for decades and varied by maker. But broadly:
• Fully hand-forged two-piece silver rattail forks remained common through the 18th century.
• High-end Sheffield and London silversmiths still used forged-and-joined construction into the mid-19th century.
• Industrial drop-stamping and die-forging increasingly replaced them from roughly the 1840s–1880s.
• By the early 20th century, almost all commercial EPNS and stainless rattail cutlery was one-piece stamped construction with decorative tails only.
So the “last” true structural rat-tail forks were probably being made by traditional silversmith workshops into the late Victorian or Edwardian era, but mainstream production had effectively moved to one-piece manufacture by about 1900–1920.
One useful clue when examining antique pieces:
• On genuinely old hand-forged forks, the rat-tail is usually asymmetrical, deeply raised, and organically blended into the neck.
• On modern stamped versions, it tends to be perfectly centred, shallow, and mechanically uniform.
The very pronounced rat-tail seen on early English silver is essentially evidence of the transition from forged multi-part flatware to industrial one-piece manufacture.
I hope this helps inform your search for a ‘proper Rattail’.
We do have a 30-day no-questions-asked returns policy. Your order was placed 30th March 2026, so slightly longer than this time period; however, we are happy to take the spoons back if you no longer want them. Please contact us directly to return them and we will issue a refund provided they are unused, in a new condition, and re-packaged accordingly.
If you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Lincoln House Cutlery.

Highest standard and so comfortable to hold and use.

Hi Maureen,
Thank you so much for leaving us a 5 star review - we’re over the moon!
Thank you for shopping with us and we hope to see you again soon :-)
Lincoln House Cutlery

This was a gift for a chef friend but I opened it to admire it before I gave it to him. It was truely a thing of beauty! When he received it his message simply said ‘Best Pressie Ever!’

Hi, Thank you so much for leaving us a 5 star review - we’re over the moon!
Delighted that your chef friend was delighted with the Forge de Laguiole Butter Knife - and they are right; it is a thing of beauty. I have one at home as well and love it - use it daily and it's always a joy!
Thank you for shopping with us and we hope to see you again soon :-)
Lincoln House Cutlery

1 2 3

Refund policy

Returns

Damaged or Faulty Goods

We’re here to help

Let customers speak for us