Hatton Garden, for centuries the heart of London’s traditional gold and diamond trade, christmas gift is reinventing itself as a hub for emerging contemporary jewellery designers.
The area had been at risk of losing some of its traditional character. Behind the ranks of wedding ring retailers at street level, small basement and upper floor workshops have been closing for years as landlords convert premises to commercial office space.
But prescriptive planning policies adopted by Camden council have started to reverse the trend, creating workshop space and fostering a wave of start-up jewellery businesses.
The council has also handed out grants to about 70 jewellers to invest in new technology, silver money clips established a network to help businesses subcontract within the cluster and supported training courses, including the first NVQ in jewellery-making, to bring fresh blood into the industry. Now it is seeking to rebrand Hatton Garden.
“There’s a misconception that Hatton Garden is just about wedding rings, but it’s the place to come to commission jewellery whether your budget is 50 or 50,000,” said Fiona McKeith, Camden’s jewellery sector development manager. “Now it’s about driving footfall and repositioning Hatton Garden in the consumer mind. There’s an amazing wealth of design talent here.”
About 500 jewellery-related businesses are in Hatton Garden, including 150 manufacturers, mostly microbusinesses employing up to four people in specialist areas such as polishing or setting.
Research into the sector a few years ago found that the most pressing worry for 60 per cent of businesses was not being able to relocate within Hatton Garden because of the erosion in the number of workshops.
“Businesses were being forced out of Hatton Garden,” said Ms McKeith. “And the companies silver pendants here feel that if they are not located near Hatton Garden, they will fail.” Four years ago Camden revised its development ban on changing the use of buildings from commercial to residential. Instead, it obliged developers to return 50 per cent of building space to use as affordable workshops. Where buildings are too small for that, the council receives a financial contribution.
As a result, it has secured 2,600 square metres of affordable space, including a 32-workshop building that has just been refurbished. Still more space, aimed at creating a hub for manufacturers and new designers, is due to open this month.
Since moving to the Langdales Jewellery Centre on St Cross Street, which has supported 10 start-ups and rehoused four craft manufacturers since it opened in 2007, Tony Lark and Warren Heathcote of A&W Setters have seen an upturn in their business in spite of the recession, as well as received help investing in technology.
As he worked on a pendant set containing hundreds of tiny diamonds, Mr Heathcote said: “We have silver earrings had grants that helped us upgrade the microscopes and buy precision drills. We can get a much more precise setting and so we get better quality jobs.
“Before we were in Farringdon Road and it’s just that step away, so customers don’t want to go there. It make a huge difference [being at the heart of Hatton Garden].”
Nearby, Jewelworks, a jewellery repairer and be-spoke manufacturer, is expanding. Though retail sales across the sector are hit by the downturn, Jewelworks’ sales are up 25 per cent as more clients repair or restore jewellery. Nick Gray, its owner, plans to develop the business into a repair hub and explore more direct contact with customers, rather than working solely through independent stores and large chains.
The company’s competitiveness has improved since it incorporated computer-aided design and installed a laser welder – bought with the help of Camden grants – enabling it to produce designs quickly and take on more sophisticated work.
Alan Elkins, Jewelworks’ workshop manager, said: “I’m 50 years old and have been in the trade all my life silver key rings and I can see this [laser machine] will let us do work that we simply couldn’t do before.”
Now the challenge for Hatton Garden, which held is first festival this summer as part of Coutts London Jewellery Week, is to change its retail face to rival Bond Street and create more galleries, says Ms McKeith. To this end, Platform, a not-for-profit information centre and contemporary jewellery showcase space, opened recently.
Ms McKeith added: “What is presented to the customer as the retail offer does not reflect what is going on behind the scenes.”
Bespoke designs shine through retail gloom
Elizabeth Powell (below right) is realising her dream of running her own jewellery design and manufacturing business. Unperturbed by the retail gloom on the high street, the 29-year-old has just launched her first collection of rings, pendants and earrings after working on bespoke designs for the past two years.
She began in a communal start-up provided by Camden council, before moving to a workshop in Nicholas James, the largest contemporary jewellery store in Hatton Garden.
“It’s been quite a long process setting up,” she said. “It can be difficult to find workshop space.”
Apart from the specialist jewel-setting, she does all the manufacturing and design work herself. She describes silver necklaces her pieces, which retail at between 500 and 5,000, as “affordable luxury”. Ms Powell plans to open her own shop in the area this month to display her work and that of other emerging designers.
“Hatton Garden is changing and evolving. There is a greater appreciation of contemporary design here now,” she says
Credit: By Bob Sherwood, London and South-East Correspondent