The English brothers are realizing a dream 20 years in the making.
Although Switzerland reigns supreme in watchmaking, that hasn’t always been the case.
“In the 17th and 18th centuries, pretty much every concept that you find in a modern Swiss watch was developed primarily in England,” says watchmaker Robert Loomes, chairman of the British Horological Institute. Even the Swiss lever escapement—which makes the ticking sound in mechanical watches and clocks—isn’t Swiss: It was created in London around 1750 by Thomas Mudge.
“There were some extraordinary watchmakers who rivaled the likes of Patek Philippe,” Loomes says. “Firms like Players of Coventry made the most extraordinary, complicated, beautiful, and expensive watches.”
So what happened to British watchmaking? World War I and II. Timepiece makers joined the army, and many studios were bombed during the Blitz. “When those workshops were destroyed in the Second World War, very few people thought of carrying on,” Loomes says.
The last British watch company that made high-quality mechanical timepieces on an industrial scale was Smith Industries, which closed in the 1970s. Until recently, British companies mainly manufactured inexpensive watches overseas or made a small number of exquisite, six-figure timepieces completely by hand in small workshops such as Roger W. Smith or Loomes & Co. (helmed by Loomes himself).
Now the art is returning to British shores with a big footprint, thanks to Nick and Giles English. Last month the two founders of Bremont Watch Co. opened the Wing, a 35,000-square-foot state-of-the-art facility, where it machines cases and movement components and assembles its timepieces. Formally known as the Bremont Manufacturing & Technology Centre, the Wing marks the first time in more than 50 years that industrial-scale watchmaking has operated in the U.K.
The English brothers grew up in Cambridge in the ’70s sharing a fascination with clocks, cars, and planes. Their father, Euan, who had a Ph.D. in aeronautical engineering from the University of Cambridge, was a Royal Air Force pilot and restored vintage planes for fun.
“We had an amazing childhood where we were in the workshop with our father,” Nick says. “Our mother would give us clocks she would buy in a boot [rummage] sale, and we would take them apart. We never managed to put them back together, but we had an awful lot of fun.”
Nick and Giles followed in Dad’s aviation footsteps, getting their pilot licenses at 17 and flying in the RAF reserves as undergraduates. They later began careers in corporate finance in the City of London and might still be there if it weren’t for a tragedy during practice for an RAF air show involving Nick and Euan in 1995. The crash killed their father and left Nick gravely injured. The brothers left the City and followed their passion for mechanics by purchasing North Weald Flying Services Ltd., which restores historic aircraft.
Eventually their focus turned from aviation and motoring to watchmaking. The brothers didn’t care for the styles popular in the early 2000s, which Nick describes as “quite bling and oversized.” They wanted to create classic timepieces with military-inspired designs that could handle extreme conditions.
Using money they earned by selling a livestreaming and data protection platform they’d founded in 1999, they started Bremont in 2002. Making watches in the U.K. was part of their mission statement, but since there were no suppliers in country, they had to start by using workers and producers in Switzerland.
After years of research and development, they brought out their first timepieces in 2007—a dozen chronometer-rated units with an entry-level price point at about $3,400. A splashy marketing campaign featuring actors Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, who wore the watches as they traveled 13,000 miles by motorcycle around Central and South America, helped win fans.
The company puts its watches through brutal paces: It started a partnership with Martin-Baker Aircraft Co., a British manufacturer of fighter jet ejection seats for air forces around the world, to test select watches as it tested seats. (Bremont’s MB1 is exclusively offered to pilots who’ve had to eject from a plane using a Martin-Baker seat, but other models are available to the public.)
The designs skew traditional. Some come on vintage leather straps, and for some of its glow-in-the-dark numerals, Bremont even uses a cream-colored Super-LumiNova to add an historical feel. (As bright-white Super-LumiNova ages, it develops a beige-toned patina.) Bremont uses its military relationships to create bespoke watches for the British Ministry of Defence and other forces around the world.
Many people think of watchmaking as a delicate métier, with rows of lab-coated people painstakingly assembling timepieces. That’s accurate, but Bremont also has an enormous manufacturing division that uses massive machines to make cases and movement components. The process requires significant capital from the company and its investors—Nick estimates the Wing and its machines cost more than £25 million ($34 million)—as well as trained people to run the machines, finish the components, and assemble the parts.
It took 20 years, but Bremont has steadily brought elements of manufacturing and watchmaking back to the U.K. First came assembling all of the components into the final “movement,” or timekeeping mechanism. Then came case manufacturing, which entailed buying and programming computer-controlled cutting machines to produce thousands of case parts a year. Finally, Nick and Giles arranged for components to be finished by hand on-site, ensuring each piece is perfectly polished.
Even brands such as Patek Philippe don’t make every component on their own. What the English brothers want to do is create a U.K.-based supply chain for much of the watchmaking, a project they call Operation Bulldog. They make partnerships with local suppliers whenever possible, including for packaging, screws, sapphire glass, and straps.
“I’m hoping people will be inspired by what we are doing,” Nick says. He would love to see more component manufacturers or new dial fabricators open in the U.K. to supply companies around the world.
The Wing is located on the outskirts of Henley-on-Thames, a quintessential English country town. The shape of the curved, futuristic building designed by Spratley & Partners was inspired by a vintage biplane. Floor-to-ceiling windows span one side, flooding the space with light and showcasing the surrounding fields of the Black Bears Polo Club.
Inside is a quirky mix of heavy machinery, a Soho House-style bar, and lounges that would look at home in a tech startup. The space is designed for tours, which Bremont will offer as soon as the pandemic permits. Model aircraft are scattered about, and the hood of a vintage Jaguar is mounted on one wall. A Williams Racing Formula One race car, a new Bremont partner, is parked in the boutique.
“It’s highly clinical where it needs to be clinical,” Nick says. “But what we’ve done is brought a bit of Bremont’s personality in there as well.”
The duo celebrated the opening with new watches. From the brand’s Supermarine collection come its first diver’s chronograph (from $6,795) and the vintage-inspired S302 (from $4,195). The Argonaut Azure (from $3,695), from its military division, has a blue dial and bright-orange strap.
But the most special piece is a limited-edition box set ($14,495) produced in partnership with Jaguar that includes a watch made in honor of the E-Type’s 60th anniversary, a dashboard rally timer, and a driving experience with Jaguar’s Classic car division. Collectors will get to test three vintage E-Type cars at the company’s track in Fen End.
Does it get more British than that?
