THE FIRM
The firm was set up in 1979 by Derek Elliott and has been based in the heart of the Cotswolds since 1981. We are a very versatile group of craftsmen and over the years have undertaken a great variety of different kinds of projects. There are numerous houses in the countryside, local towns and in London that have been kitted out with interior fittings, furniture and some joinery, givings these places a coherent consistency where all the features relate to one another. Some of our projects have been very large and some very small. We have worked on stately homes as well as small town houses. We make modest kitchens and grand libraries, alters for churches and furniture for institutions such as the Ashmolean and Oxford Colleges. We are noted members of the contemporary British Furniture Movement and even express our love of all things wooden in the outside world, having made more than one Japanese Tea House and recently been invited participants at outdoor sculpture shows. Derek was even found one year crouched in the main hall of the Dorchester Hotel, at the British Spring fashion show, pinning thousands of dried flowers to sculptured animals for the 'safari' theme.
The people in the workshop are immensely skilled and have mostly been with the firm for a long time. They take huge pride in their work. They are led by Derek Elliott who is the designer and organizer. He has occasionally run master classes in creative design in furniture colleges and has a history of mentoring craftsmen who have gone on to setting up their own workshops. We are pretty friendly and do our best to maintain personal contact with the people we work for. Since part of our work is in cooperation with other members of the construction industry, there is a lot of experience as to how to dovetail efficiently in construction programs.
Our philosophy is simply to make what feels right for any given context. Having seen the site or the concept for the proposed works and met the people involved, then we simply ask the question, what best fits here. Not what is the latest fashion, but what what settle in this space, bring happiness to the client and above all, stand the test of time. As well as taking care of the visual aesthetics, and the practicalities, we are also pretty good at the build quality of what the workshop produces.
