BREMONT
STORY SO FAR
British luxury watch company founded in 2002 by brothers Nick and Giles English in Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire. The brothers grew up restoring vintage aircraft and machines with their father, an ex-RAF pilot and aeronautical engineer who was killed (and Nick badly injured) in a 1995 Harvard-aircraft crash; that loss shaped the brothers' commitment to mechanical craftsmanship. The brand name comes from a real encounter: forced to land their 1930s biplane in a French pea field during a storm, they were taken in by farmer Antoine Bremont, a former wartime pilot who restored carriage clocks. The first Bremont watch went on sale in 2007. Bremont has built one of the largest UK watchmaking operations in modern times: in 2021 it opened 'The Wing', a 35,000 sq ft Manufacturing & Technology Centre in Henley, where it manufactures cases and movement components on five-axis precision mills. Its ENG300-series movement, engraved 'Made in England', was the first UK movement made at scale since Smiths in 1971. Following a £48.4m / $59m investment in 2023 led by Bill Ackman alongside Hellcat LP, Bremont restructured in 2024 with Ackman's investment vehicles taking majority control and Ackman as non-exec chairman.
DESIGNED BY
Bremont — design and HQ at 'The Wing' Manufacturing & Technology Centre, Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK
MADE BY
Watches are designed, machined and assembled in the UK at The Wing, Henley-on-Thames. Bremont machines its own cases and key movement components in-house on five-axis milling machines. The flagship ENG300 movement is fully manufactured and engraved 'Made in England'. Other models in the range still use Swiss-base calibres (modified by Bremont) — the company has been progressively shifting more components into UK production since 2010. Final assembly, testing and chronometer rating are carried out in Henley.
TO BUY
Further information
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bremont
Further research reading
Region Made
