Workshops are the most prized assets of some of the UK’s most storied jewellery retailers. Yet, for the most part, they remain hidden and out of bounds to the public.
Three years ago, Asprey quietly opened a 4,900 sq ft space in Hammersmith, west London, relocating the jeweller’s machinery and craftspeople, who had previously laboured in a warren of Georgian-era attic rooms above its former flagship in New Bond Street.
“We are very fortunate at Asprey to be one of the very few British luxury heritage brands to still have a fully functioning and flourishing workshop in London,” says Asprey’s owner, John Rigas, for whom retaining and relocating the workshop was a passion project.
“The Asprey workshop is at the heart of our business — home to artisans whose skill and dedication define our legacy and cultural engagement. Their expertise is an invaluable asset, ensuring that every piece we create reflects the highest standards of excellence.”
The Hammersmith site houses 13 white-coated craftspeople, some of whom have spent their whole working life at Asprey. The workshop specialises mostly in silversmithing, but the plan is to reintroduce jewellers.
The workshop’s activities include laser welding and polishing. Silver is sometimes plated with pure silver to hide fire marks that are very difficult to remove or to give a piece a more consistent mirror finish. The sound of hammering base metal on silver can be heard, using some irreplaceable tools that have been part of Asprey’s kit for well over 100 years.
The team undertakes all manner of bespoke commissions and creates trophies for world-class events. It could be a silver animal head — such as a ram with brown glass eyes that sits atop one of Asprey’s signature £5,950 crystal glass decanters — a bespoke VIP commission or a trophy such as the one for the Epsom Derby horserace.
Today in the workshop, there is what every English football team dreams of: the silver Premier League trophy, which comes back every year to have the name of the winning team engraved.
Hamilton & Inches is Edinburgh’s foremost destination for fine jewellery, luxury watches and handcrafted silver. Its workshops are housed over four floors above its George Street showroom, and select clients are allowed to visit and observe the craft processes. The top-floor workshop, with views of Edinburgh Castle and the Firth of Forth, is a draw for visitors, who have included Queen Elizabeth II.
The company has made silver trophies for golf, rugby union and the lesser-known sport of shinty, for which it made a replica of the sought-after Camanachd Cup here in 2024. It is also authorised to use Single Mine Origin Scottish gold in its collections; the latest, the Botanical Collection, launched in November. Gold that comes with a stag’s head identifying mark contains a hidden trace element that can only be detected by the Edinburgh Assay office. This necessitates benches in the workshop to be screened off so that nothing contaminates the special gold.
“Having a workshop staffed by nine craftspeople is an incredible asset — it represents an unparalleled depth of skill, experience, and dedication to craftsmanship,” says Victoria Houghton, chief executive of the 159-year-old company.
Education is central to Hamilton & Inches, which funds crafting apprenticeships offered in partnership with universities including Edinburgh, Dundee and Glasgow. These placements unlock training and mentorship opportunities and are aimed at safeguarding the future of silversmithing, goldsmithing and engraving in Scotland. The company also offer two eight-week internship placements each year.
In addition to workshops in Harlow, Essex, where trophies for golf and Royal Ascot horseracing are created by a team of eight silversmiths, Mappin & Webb has 2,300 sq ft of workshop space in an unprepossessing building near London’s Oxford Street. Housing 14 craftspeople, including master goldsmiths, apprentices, diamond setters, polishers and gemstone experts, it moved here from Hatton Garden in 2019.
The staircase to the workshop space is lined with framed pictures and royal warrants that document Mappin & Webb’s illustrious history as jeweller, goldsmith and silversmith to British royalty, including as the Crown Jeweller.
In the West End workshop, the commissions range from insurance company work, watch repairs, restoration and resizing to reimagining a high-net-worth client’s suite of multimillion-pound diamonds designed and made in house.
All is overseen by Mark Appleby, director of jewellery services. “Throughout my working career I have taken the incumbent act to bring young apprentices into the wonderful world of jewellery,” he says. Mappin & Webb and other royal warrant holders support the Queen Elizabeth Scholarship Trust, which supports young people who demonstrate extraordinary talent in British craftsmanship. “The preservation of craft is a duty to the industry which we must help to maintain,” Appleby adds.
At Mappin & Webb, apprentices spend three years learning traditional bench techniques before being let loose on computer-aided design, which has its own designated space. Diamond mounting takes place in another cornered-off space by craftspeople wearing high-magnification eyeglasses who have trained for five years to perform this role.
The workshop is staffed by a combination of indentured apprentices and pre-apprentices, many of whom are graduates of the Goldsmiths’ Centre, the London training institute. At Mappin & Webb they work and learn from master goldsmiths.
“Through the centre’s foundation programme and an industry-responsive apprenticeship scheme, it has allowed us to work with a wide variety of businesses that are at the heart of our trade, which include the internationally recognised workshops of Mappin & Webb and Asprey,” says Chris Oliver, head of professional training at the Goldsmiths’ Centre.
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