Bremont

Nick and Giles English founded Bremont in 2002, four years after their father died in a plane crash that Nick survived. All three had restored and flown vintage aircraft together, and the brand that emerged is inseparable from that. The name comes from Antoine Bremont, a French farmer who sheltered the brothers after an emergency landing.

Bremont set out to rebuild British watchmaking, which had effectively ended in the twentieth century. The early watches used Swiss movements in British-designed cases, with the Trip-Tick three-part case construction and a hardened outer barrel treated to over 2000 Vickers.

The military and aviation work is real rather than thematic. Bremont holds contracts with squadrons across the RAF, the US Air Force, and other services, producing issued watches for specific units, and has made watches for Martin-Baker ejection seat survivors — tested to the ejection forces themselves.

The company has also built watches incorporating material from historical objects: oak and copper from HMS Victory, aluminium from the Wright Flyer, and steel from Bletchley Park.

The manufacturing ambition advanced with the opening of a facility in Henley and the release of the ENG300 series in 2021, the first Bremont movement designed and largely made in England. Production is in the low tens of thousands annually.

Bremont holds 3 models, from £2,775 to £2,950. Half cost less than £2,925, and a quarter less than £2,850. 3 of 3 are automatic. 2 are stocked by more than one retailer, giving 9 offers in total. Prices are checked nightly against the retailers’ own feeds.

2002

Nick and Giles English found Bremont.

2007

The first watches ship with the Trip-Tick case.

2009

The Martin-Baker collaboration begins.

2021

The ENG300 becomes the first English-made Bremont calibre.