 G'day! So, if we were in England and we decide to go tramping, we wouldn't be following Charlie Chaplin's footsteps. In Australia, being a tramp is being a hobo. But in the UK and other parts of the English-speaking world, tramping means to go on long walks, specifically through the countryside or the woods, or through undergrowth. So, put on your English Brogue wingtip country boots, and let's go tramping. How you going? Welcome back to Bootlossophy. I acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands I live and work on, the Wajik people of the Nungan Nation. If this is your first time here, my name is Tech, and Bootlossophy is my boot review channel looking at quality footwear from around the world. Today, I'm taking a look at the UK bootmaker Joseph Cheney's Tweed Boots, their Brogue wingtip country boot. It's called the Tweed Boot after the River Tweed in the border region between Scotland and England. It is defined by Cheney as a Brogue country boot. It's a six-inch boot with a day-night sole suitable for walking in the country as well as in the city. It's Goodyear-welted with an all-round leather storm welt for additional water-resistant properties. Built with three eyelets and four speed hooks in premium hand-burnished Scotch grain calf leather, this one is in a colour they call almond. The Brogue punching and edge pin-king in the wingtip panels are quite bold, emphasising the pebble grain of the uppers and leading to a more casual look than broguing on smooth leathers. The hand-painted patina on the mid-tan almond colour gives the already interesting pebbled Scotch grain even more interest. The generous quarter-pieces mean that they lace quite close together, giving a formal vibe, even though it's a derby boot and the overall package being a more casual country boot. The English use the term country boot as a boot suitable for the more informal dressing outside of London for tramping or hiking or more accurately walking across the rolling English countryside and in the old days attending country shooting parties and so on. While the term continues, it's really outmoded, coming from the turn of the 20th century when gentlemen would leave London to weekend at their country homes and shoot and walk in where less formal, country-fight clothing. The Brogue version of a country boot is a style of low-heeled boot characterised by multi-pieces of sturdy leather uppers, decorative perforations called broguing and sometimes pink serrated edges along the leather's pieces, visible edges. Brogues were traditionally considered to be outdoor or country footwear as the perforations were originally intended to allow the uppers to drive more quickly in wet weather. As such they were otherwise considered not appropriate for business occasions but Brogues are now considered appropriate in most contexts. At least in the UK and certainly while called that by English bootmakers there's no real distinction between city and country boots anymore. Brogue wingtips, so-called because of the multi-pieces of leather forming what might look like wings. See my review of the Thursday wingtip up there. Brogue wingtips can really be worn in most dress or casual occasions these days especially post-COVID and the marked casualisation of office dress. So this is a very versatile boot. Maybe not as obvious to others, you can wear this with a suit in grey or navy allowing the tan to contrast against the darker colour of the suit. You can also go to the extreme and wear these with casual denim and a relaxed casual shirt even a henley and a leather jacket. They will definitely work in what's now trending as high-low dressing in jeans, a dress shirt and a tailored blazer. But most of all, casual outfits in dark colours like black chinos or jeans will make them pop. Before we go on, let's take a look at the footwear industry traditional to the English county of Northamptonshire and at the brand of Joseph Cheney and Sums. Northamptonshire is renowned as the home of quality English shoe making and has been since the 1800s. It seems Northamptonshire towns, including the county's market town of Northampton accumulated family cottage industries run by families who made footwear because of their nearby availability of tanneries. Many families made shoes but rather than carrying out the whole operation they would specialise in a part of the process. This would typically be done in outhouses at the bottom of the gardens which were known as shops. At each stage of the process the shoe would move to a different shop until the end product would go to a collection point for distribution. In the late 1800s the oldest shoe families began to be more organised which led to the establishment of shoe factories where based in the towns of Northampton, Desbra and Rothwell they incorporated all the processes of shoe making under one roof employing the various specialists that previously worked as individuals. In 1886 Joseph Cheney, a cobbler who had been the manager of another shoe factory started the business J Cheney, later become Joseph Cheney and Sons. The eponymous Sons joined in 1896 when the business moved to a purpose built factory on the site it still occupies today. Although some manufacturers now outsource the initial production of the uppers to Asia Cheney shoes are still cut out and closed in Desbra as they have been since 1886. Up until the mid 1960s though Cheney used to make shoes exclusively for fine retailers branded to the retailers individual requirements rather than under their own brand. But in 1964 the family sold the business to the church group in a bid to preserve the family name. Following the sale Cheney began to make steady gains in the industry and two years later in 1966 the year that Bobby Moore in England won the Association Football World Cup the factory started to first produce shoes under their own Cheney name. The business is now owned by cousins William and Jonathan Church of the church family who in 2009 boarded out from churches the company which was by then a subsidiary of the global Prada fashion group. Since then they've really established Cheneys as a firm member of the group of old English quality shoemakers. Now let's take a look at the construction of these tweed boots. Starting from the bottom the outsole is the popular UK made day night studded rubber outsole. The heel top lift is also day night put on top of a low leather stacked heel. The outsole is attached to the uppers using the Goodyear welt form of construction. I won't go into detail here but if you really want the details you can watch my video on Goodyear welting up there. Basically a strip of leather called the welt is sewn to the insole and the turned in uppers leather through the inside edge of the welt. Then the midsole and outsole is sewn to the welt on the outside edge of the welt. In this way there are no stitch holes going from outside to inside and so it's water resistant and it's recraftable by your cobbler and so more long lasting. The combination makes a mid profile sole structure making it look dressy as well as durable enough for walking in the great outdoors. The rubber day night sole is nearly a centimeter thick. The leather midsole is about two millimeters thick and the welt itself is also two millimeters thick adding up to a total sole construction of about 12 millimeters thickness. I think we can call that pretty stout enough. A couple more things about the welt before we move into the boot. It is a storm welt or what the English call a barber welt after the company that makes it. It has the carved lip that gets pushed up against the uppers when the welt is stitched on. It's also a wide welt looking from the top down. It extends out by nearly a centimeter all the way around being a 360 degree Goodyear welt. The raft effect of the welt and the lip of the storm welt increases water resistance especially across muddy or wet grassy terrain. Now moving inside the boot since the welt goes around the edge of the boot there's a cavity it creates between the end sole and the midsole. This is filled with cork which is the most standard that boot heads will demand giving the cork and leather combination the ability to mold the shape of your foot as you wear them and put pressure on the sole and making the boot therefore more comfortable as you break them in. They use a wooden shank embedded in the cork between the heel and the forefoot. The shank stiffens the boot under the gap between the heel and the forefoot giving you arch support and some torsional stability. Many English bootmakers prefer wooden shanks to steel shanks in low heel boots because they are lighter, cannot rust, can absorb moisture and quickly dry are airport friendly and if made of beech wood and treated correctly are actually less prone to twisting and warping. That last bit I don't know I can't see steel twisting or warping. The leather insole sits on top of the cork filling and it's topped by a leather comfort liner in the heel backed with a thin foam pad for comfort on the heel strike. The boot is fully lined with a really soft leather lining which I think is called glove leather. The uppers as I mentioned before are a tan colour that they call almond and is tanned in England from an unnamed tannery. It's a pebble grain leather, it's full grain but it's embossed to create the grain effect. The cows don't lie on grain to get that. I found it to cover up creasing and imperfections that develop as I wear the boot. These are now about 10 years old and you can see the patina and wear but there's very little to reveal about creasing and wrinkling that would be way more apparent on smooth brown leathers. These have obviously seen their share of regular conditioning and after all these years the uppers have softened to become glove like. Really really soft and very comfortable. They're built around one of Shini's roomier lasts the 12508 last if that means anything to you. A last is of course the foot shaped mould that boot makers will pull the leather around to create the boot in the shape of the last. So a wider last, a wider boot. Despite the wideness you can see the shape is pretty sleek and elegant when compared to North American round toe boots. You couldn't accuse say whites or red wings to have as sleek a shape even though this is wide. While it's comfy and wider on the ball of the foot the heel is snug and the surprisingly not pinching toe is very almond shaped. I know the stiffeners use that the toe and in the heel counter in this pair are leather but they have changed some of their manufacturing practices since Covid and I can't find any reference in their current literature about whether they still are made from leather. The broguing and the pinking and the stitching to border the brogue holes is all very precise and very accurate. The toe medallion is discreet unlike the very large brogue holes that you can see in Grenson's Fred boot which you can check out in my review up there. I think I said earlier that the quarters were very generous. When you lace them up the facings almost touch together making the derby closure look almost like a formal Oxford closure. I have seen on social media some experts tell newbies from photos that their boots are too big because the lacings touch and they should be at least an inch apart. What rubbish. Think about it, if you cut your quarters large they will touch when you lace them up. Cut them smaller and they'll leave a bigger gap. It's a physical characteristic of the size of the panel nothing to do with sizing. The tongue is surprisingly gusseted only up to the second eyelid quite low considering these were made to be capable of walking around a muddy field. As such on my foot they do slip slightly toward the outside of each boot. They are lightly padded though so tying up the laces tight is no problem. There are three antique brass eyelets and matching four speed hooks which makes putting them on and taking them off a breeze. It's probably the best combination because you can quickly undo the laces from the speed hooks and just prise open the facings at the eyelets and the shaft just opens up. At the top there's a cloth pull loop which if you have to have a pull loop for a dressy boot that's ideal because they just fold out of the way without catching on your pants. Let's talk about leather care. On Chini's website they talk about cream rather than conditioner. They recommend Saphir's Neutral Renovateur and refer to it as a moisturizer for skin. They suggest conditioning it with the Neutral Renovateur leaving it 10 minutes then buffing off with a brush before putting on the coloured Renovateur the same way. When I bought these from the Covent Garden store about 10 years ago in London I didn't know about Saphir and to be honest I was just using a light tan hard wax polish. That was my shoe care for probably 7 or 8 years and when I finally learned enough about conditioning boots I used a light diluted alcohol solution to wipe away some of the old accumulation of hard wax and then I conditioned them with Venetian shoe cream. Looking at that colour I never thought it needed touching up and I really didn't want to bugger up the hand-painted patina anyway so I then just applied a thin smear of neutral cream from Turago as the protecting coat. Every now and then I've also put on a thin smear of neutral hard wax polish applied using a slightly damp sponge and then dabbing it on and then brushing it up to a shine. Take a look. I don't think I've done any damage. Now moving on to sizing. Now Chini being an English company uses the UK sizing format. The UK sizing format is one number down from the US sizing format so my true size as measured on a brand new device is a US 8.5 in D width which equates to a UK 7.5 in average width. By the way the width lettering in the UK system is a little anachronistic. The width letters used depend on the boot maker and what they used depend on what they used to call different widths generations ago. So in the UK the USD width, or average width is called D by Clarks but also called G by Grenson and F by Makers like Chini. So these boots are a 7.5 in their F width average width meaning they fit true to size. In 7.5 in F width the heel and waist are quite snug. The ball of the feet are suitably wide and the toe box is the right length and surprisingly for such an almond shaped toe not squeezy at all. It's a very comfortable fit and the sole construction of leather and cork is also fantastic for comfort and shock absorption. After 10 years though, I'm beginning to feel the inside edges of the insole so perhaps it's almost time for a re-sole even though the outsole is still in pretty good nick as you can see. I may have just compressed the cork inside a bit too much by now and that's why I might need a re-sole. Chini make the tweed boot in a number of make-ups varying the uppers leather and the outsole and they seem to call these, give these a letter for model variation. So for example they have tweed C and tweed R and tweed GV and so on. I didn't see the variation in name at the store when I bought these so I'm not sure what these are technically. In fact I can't see this exact make-up on their website today and most of those I see have five eyelets and three speed hooks so the pattern has changed a bit I think but I really can't tell any structural or design difference other than the hardware. So all that is a precursor to say that you may not be able to get this exact boot today. They now sell for the mid to high 400 pounds. Now this was 10 years ago but I bought these for the low 300 pounds. I think it was about 325 pounds. Typical of me though, the week after I bought them the same store had them for sale at below 300 pounds. So today they're over 800 Aussie dollars or about 550 US dollars. Look at that price they compare in price with Weiburgs and Whites in American boots and with the higher priced burnished and veal calf leather RM Williams signature craftsman boots. I emphasise in price because you can't compare apples with oranges can you as in the case of Whites casual MP boots but I guess they are nearer to Weiburgs stitched down service boots in that they're intended for wearing in the field and can be dressy. I'm not sure you might compare with RM's veal calf boots because if you had a pair of those I'm pretty sure you're not going to kick rocks with them. Anyway taking that sort of comparison in place they do stack up pretty well. I don't think these are built as rugged as the Weiburgs but they do compare well in quality of materials and in the real leather used. Perhaps not as thick in the sole construction. They compare a little less well against the RM's in the leather used but I suspect the construction is better than the RM's. What else would you compare them with? Look I don't have a pair of Trickers Stowe boots which sell for up to 100 pounds more than these. A similar boot from Grenson is their Fred boot made in India and selling for 100 pounds less than these and apart from not being made in the UK with the higher unit costs I don't think they are as good as these so using all of those comparisons these boots look like a fair price. Value though. I've had these 10 years and looking at the wear really good. These are one of my few boots that I can say I've worn frequently when before the Covid age I wore a suit to work every day and these at least twice a week. Nothing wrong with them except maybe the day night heel is a little worn in this back corner. Even with the price increase today from 10 years ago I'd say they're worth it if you work out cost per wear. So there you go. I hope you liked this review. Don't forget to click on the like button down below especially if you did like it that would really help me out. And of course if you're not subscribed and you don't want to miss out on more detailed boot reviews and brand comparisons you can click on subscribe and YouTube will show you upcoming videos in your feed when I upload them. Look all in all this is not a cheap pair of boots but they look good. They're very versatile and they have proven to be durable in everyday use. Sure there are a few English shoes that look like these but the pricing is fair when compared to some like Tricus and the materials are good when compared with others. I've put a link to their website in case you want to see the current models. It's not an affiliate link so have at it. I'll be uploading more videos soon so until then take care and I'll see you soon.