Inside 'The Wing'
British manufacturer Bremont is championing the next generation of fine watchmaking talent, all inside a purpose-built facility near Henley-on-Thames
Which came first? The British watchmaker that revived British watchmaking or the building that housed the British watchmaker? For Nick and Giles English, the suitably named brothers who co-founded Bremont 20 years ago, the answer is that the two march in time together.
In early 2021, Bremont opened the Bremont Manufacturing and Technology Centre, known fondly as ‘The Wing’. The 35,000 sq ft steel and glass building realised, in part, a long-held dream. “Our original mission was to revive British watchmaking,” says Giles English.
Under The Wing’s sweeping grassed roof, Bremont now produces watch cases and movement parts, bringing industrial watchmaking back to British shores for the first time in half a century. It’s not been easy. “To be a British watch company, you have to make your watches in Great Britain,” says English. “But on-shoring a process to a country that’s lost its industry is very difficult. You have to start from scratch.”
Scratch was in 2002 when the brothers first hit on the idea of creating a British mechanical watch company. It would be five years before Bremont’s first watch went on sale; even then, it was Swiss Made, built using Swiss machines, assembled by Swiss hands.
In the two decades since, and through what English describes as a project designed to “make our lives more difficult”, Bremont’s operation has moved steadily to the UK. The opening of The Wing brought many of the skills and processes involved in making a mechanical watch under one roof.
It also future-proofed the business. Today, Bremont makes around 10,000 watches a year, but The Wing will allow the company to increase capacity to as many as 50,000 pieces annually, should it be needed. The building was designed by Spratley & Partners, the Henley-based architects behind countryside hotel Heckfield Place and the Ruskin School of Art in Oxford. Bremont has never disclosed the build cost, but English confirms it comfortably surpassed £20m. Some of the state-of-the-art milling machines it houses cost as much as £800,000 alone. For many reasons, The Wing, says English, has proved a great enabler.
Since its opening, Bremont has announced ENG300, its first proprietary movement (the beating heart of the watch) largely engineered, produced and assembled under The Wing’s roof, opened its H1 Timing Standard chronometer testing centre (the first in the UK), and accelerated its apprenticeship scheme. “In Switzerland, I’d get 30 people applying for a watchmaking job,” says English. “But if we want watch assemblers, we have to train them ourselves.”
Covid pushed The Wing’s opening back six months, a blessing in disguise says English. “Looking back on it, the delays helped and we made very few mistakes,” he says. Today, it’s a workplace for around 130 employees, with space for more, and alongside the building Bremont has already begun laying the foundations for a 20,000 sq ft extension.
“The Wing means Bremont will be here for many years to come, with the staff it needs to help transform British watchmaking,” says English.
Despite the great strides the company has made over the past 20 years, English feels they’ve still only taken baby steps towards the revival he and his brother first imagined. “We’ve come a long way, but the journey is still massively ahead of us,” he says.
Book a guided tour of Bremont’s Henley facility, or shop Bremont’s watches at bremont.com. Robin Swithinbank is a contributor to the New York Times, GQ and the Financial Times, and is former editor of The Jackal.
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