About us

  From here, having discovered machining capabilities, trade experience was gained as a builders carpenter, joiner, and cabinetmaker. Further tuition was gained from the John Makepeace school for Craftsmen in Wood.

  By the age of 23 he headed into London from the Provinces with a bag of tools on the tank of a motorbike. After a year of shopfitting and builders carpentry jobs our founder's first workshop was born in W. London.

  Working night and day(literally) our founder undertook his own contracts in shopfitting, joinery and cabinetmaking all at the pace of a race horse.

  By the age of 27-28, He opened his first retail shop almost next door to Harrods on Brompton Road. This was achieved on the strength of a single Saville Row shop fit contract and his own money...no other money was gifted nor borrowed.

  The shop was pivotal in gaining access to clientele (see client list near the footer on home page) who properly appreciated the highest quality of workmanship. Our founder was in the right place with the right audience and was right for that audience since the quest for excellence in craftsmanship had long been his motivation for woodworking. To reach for one's best was a truly justifiable development of one's ego and was instilled in him from a very young age in the parenting he was fortunate to receive.

  @13 more years of varied woodworking practice in London led to the latest 2800 sq ft workshop being approved for the owners to demolish and re-develop. At the time, there were few other affordable leasehold properties available, so the solution was to take a huge plunge and buy his own property...a small farm in Devon. Two articulated lorries worth of machinery and materials were installed in a 2400sqft cow shed....and we haven't looked back much since then(21 yrs ago). At the farm, a brief distraction from woodworking was indulged in the development of a small tree nursery....well it's good to balance the books before one gets to the Pearly gates. It can at least be said that as much timber has been grown as has been used!

  In recognition of his work, in 2016 our founder was invited and inaugurated as a Freeman of the Worshipful Company of Furniture Makers .in the City of London

  The journey is not over yet, and is now in a new phase of releasing a vast retail collection of woodworking and materials curated over almost 40yrs alongside new 2020's furniture, with new and old works of art in wood, and new and antique micro mosaics with as small as 0.6mmx0.6mm tesserae. We expect to release brand new made in Devon micro mosaics in wood as early as possible in 2026. 

  Please note existing quality details in our shop listing descriptions. If an item is known to fall short of the Master Craftsman of Wood highest standard, it will be accompanied by our sister brand logo of "Craftsmen of Wood". 

  All items will have a quality description, and in the case of unrestored antiques awaiting restoration the description may be 'As found'.  

   Additionally, there may be options for further restoration or customisation options for many pieces offered. Email us to discuss these further. It's good to talk, we are here to help.

  

  Custom/bespoke woodworking, indeed any woodworking at the meticulous and highbrow end of the spectrum, is a very time consuming process with little room for error. Our rates have to be sustainable for us but are less than most car mechanics, and less than most commercial joinery workshops we know of. We are helped by the absence of leaseholder rent/rates with service charges and landlords insurance, etc, as we own our property outright.