GWIS
1713
Tour of Bremont’s Manufacturing and Technology Centre - “the Wing”
Sep 17, 2023,07:21 AM
I always love the posts about tours of the watch factories but being in the UK the opportunities for visiting watch factories are limited. However, Bremont run twice daily tours around their factory, “the Wing”, in Henley-on-Thames, about an hour from London. Having been on the tour last week I can highly recommend it. It’s certainly well worth the admission fee of £25 - which goes to charity.
The tour guides, Tom and Luke, are very knowledgeable about watches and they’re passionate about Bremont and it’s goal of helping to bring back large scale watchmaking to the UK.
It’s particularly impressive that the founding brothers, Nick and Giles English, have gone from a standing start to the Wing in 20 years. It might be relatively easy to start a watchmaking business in Switzerland where there are plenty of parts suppliers and there is a knowledgeable work force. Not so in the UK where the machinery and parts suppliers don’t exist and knowledge of watchmaking at scale has vanished.
Some pictures courtesy of the architects, Spratley:
The Wing is set in a lovely location overlooking polo fields. It’s the sort of place JLC should be making Reversos!
My snaps:
All the best,
Jon