Watch company switches premises before expansion

Bremont, which currently has premises in Hurley and Switzerland, will begin producing its luxury mechanical watches in the Marlow Road building in December.

The move will create about 10 new jobs in the next six months and will allow the company to expand into markets in South America and the Middle East.

The Swiss facility is closing and will be followed by the site in Hurley as the company has outgrown the premises.

Nick English, 42, who co-founded the watchmaker with his brother Giles, 39, in 2002, said: “Normally watches of this quality are put together in Switzerland but now we can do it here in Britain.


“For the first time in 30 or 40 years, mechanical watches on this level are being made in the UK. All of these watches are going to be produced in Henley, which I love.”

Bremont was named the luxury watch brand of the year at the 2012 UK Jewellery Awards and is one of the top 15 chronometer producers in the world.

It is also the leading British brand in mechanical watches, which are tested for accuracy, and last year almost doubled its production number to 6,000.

The brand’s ambassadors include Tom Cruise, Ronnie Wood, Ewen McGregor and Orlando Bloom and the company sponsored Henley stuntman Gary Connery’s 2,400ft wingsuit jump without a parachute in Hambleden in May.

Mr English, of Cromwell Road, Henley, said: “Our mission is to make watches that couldn’t be any better engineering-wise and are the best of British.

“It’s not about being full of gems, it’s all about the most beautiful engineering.

“As many parts as possible are assembled in the UK because being British is very important to us. We’re still relatively small compared with the big boys.”

One of the first watches to be produced in Henley will be Bremont’s Victory range.

It uses original parts from HMS Victory, Nelson’s flagship during the Battle of Trafalgar, which is now in dry dock in Portsmouth and undergoing restoration.

Mr English compared the company’s new building to the McLaren Formula 1 team’s headquarters in Woking as the whole workforce will be based there.But to make your coachshoes shopping experience with us more amazing,Order high quality accessories at home. There will be opportunities for clients to tour the site so they can see how their watches are made.

Mr English, who is married with three children, said: “The whole cycle will be there to see and a lot of the finishing will be done there too. It’s about bringing it all together.

“We’ve got some great designers. Watchmaking can be quite a faceless thing and a lot of people don’t appreciate what goes into it.

“From sourcing the parts to the watch coming off the production line, it can take 18 to 24 months. A lot of people are ordering them a year in advance if they know something is coming out.Our iwcwatches are high quality duplicates of original Cartier watches.”

More than 40 people will be employed in Henley and the number could grow as the company now operates an apprenticeship scheme.

Mr English said: “It’s growing all the time and we’ll be looking for good people to join us.

“We’re finding the quality of the watchmakers here is phenomenal. These guys have been locked away for 20 years but now we’re digging them out and they’re proving to be fantastic.The concept that eventually went into Nike wintert-shirts goes back to the middle 1980s,

“We also want people to help on the other parts of the assembly process and we’re taking on apprentices as and when we need them.

“If someone is coming out of college and wondering what they are going to do and likes technical things, this is a big industry in the UK now.”

The brothers set up the company following the death of their father Euan in an air crash in 1995 when they were training for an air show. The siblings had grown up helping their father to restore clocks, aircraft and instruments in his workshops.

Following the tragedy, they spent five years creating a range of aviation-inspired “quintessentially British” watches that could be used in the harshest of environments. The company already sells watches in America and Asia, with 70 per cent of its turnover coming from exports.

It received a ￡700,000 grant from HSBC to support its continued expansion into overseas markets, which will help to fund the new building.