How our Jewellery is made

Out of the excitement of Antiques Roadshow and the subsequent auction, of the only known William Burgess original brooch. We instructed our master jeweller and craftsman John Allan to create exquisite pastiches based off the original 

Stages:
 

1. Hand craft individual components
    
2. Create casts of components
    
3. Debur & Polish components
    
4. Set stones/jewelles
    
5. Assemble brooch
    
6. Final Polish & clean
    

About our Master Jeweller - John Allan:

John Allan is a craft-trained Master Jeweller. John’s father was the Master Jeweller and Managing Director of Lionel  J. Stuart, a London-based manufacturing  jewellers specialising in  design and manufacture.  John learned the trades of designing, setting/mounting, and finishing, working with all precious metals, and every type of gem stone. After finishing his apprenticeship in the craft skills under his father’s watchful eye John  wanted to broaden his skills in buying, sales and management. He joined a privately owned ‘county jewellers’ in Surrey  with five, soon to be six, branches.  Here he learned the elements of trading and management,  ending up as Branch Manager of one of the most prestigious jewellers in Surrey. But John’s heart was very much in the design and manufacturing of jewellery. Eventually he joined another leading Surrey jewellers where he was responsible for the  ‘commission manufacturing’ part of the business.

When the business was sold John found he had made sufficient contacts to venture out on his own primarily designing and manufacturing to commissions, but also undertaking technically skilled repair work.

We were pleased when John accepted the challenge of making jewellery to the designs of William Burges. He now takes full responsibility for ordering, pre-assembly preparation, and final assembly and finishing. And we will be commissioning him to produce other Burges pieces, and possibly pieces from other nineteenth century artists.

We would like to extend an invitation to prospective customers to contact John via ourselves if they have treasured pieces they would like replicated, or have designs of their own they would like John to manufacture. You can contact us by clicking here and filing in the online form.