Garrick Watchmakers
Founded in 2014 by David Brailsford (veteran watch consultant) and Simon Michlmayr (WOSTEP graduate, one of Britain's leading watchmakers of his generation) at a dedicated workshop in Norfolk, England. Part of the British watchmaking renaissance — at the nucleus of the movement to revive serious English horology. Garrick's great magic trick: making bespoke, truly handmade watches with extraordinary levels of finishing at remarkably attainable price points, starting from £2,495 for the Norfolk.
Every watch is built to order by hand in the Norfolk workshop. Dials, hands, and a multitude of movement parts are made in-house. Garrick's engine-turned guilloché dials are produced entirely in-house on antique rose and straight-line engine lathes — including an exceptionally rare rose engine that once performed guilloché for the late independent watchmaker Derek Pratt. The workshop features positive air pressure (filtered air only), Hauser jig borers for precision milling, an in-house plating room, hand-bevelled bridges, circular graining, and chatons. In-house exclusive movement: the UT-G01, designed in partnership with Andreas Strehler and built by hand in Norfolk. Collections include the S2, S4, S6, Norfolk (maritime theme with in-house thermally blued anchor hands), and the Regulator MK II. Every watch is genuinely one-of-one due to the depth of client customisation available.
The model history charts a steady technical ascent. After the early Shaftesbury, Norfolk, and Hoxton came the 2016 Portsmouth — designed with Michael Horlbeck, its dial carrying a large maker's nameplate in the manner of old maritime instruments — the first watch powered by the UT-G01, and the S1 through S3 built on the same base. The calibre family has since grown through the UT-G02 and UT-G03 to the UT-G04, and every Garrick movement carries the house's signature regulating organ: the Trinity free-sprung balance, made of Sircumet, a non-magnetic alloy exclusive to Garrick. Where a conventional index-adjusted balance alters the hairspring's effective length to regulate rate, the free-sprung Trinity keeps the spring constant and adjusts timing via weighted screws on the balance rim — letting the hairspring breathe concentrically for better precision and reducing positional error. The accessible end has deepened too: the S4 of 2021 on a heavily reworked ETA 6498, the S6 of 2023, and the 38 mm S7 of late 2023 with a vintage manual-wind base and a fully customisable dial offered in three engine-turned patterns. Recognition has followed the work — Garrick returned to the GPHG as finalists in 2025 with the S3 Deadbeat Seconds, a complication rare even among Swiss independents, executed in Norfolk — and in April 2026 the workshop exhibited at the Beau Rivage in Geneva during Watches and Wonders week, taking English guilloché and Sircumet balances to the industry's front door. Few operations anywhere offer this equation: genuinely handmade, dial-to-balance British watchmaking, customised per client, from prices that undercut mass-produced Swiss steel.