Inside the Brooks factory

Inside the Brooks factory

Events

Inside the Brooks factory

Where the magic is made

By Tom Owen
Even to approach the Brooks factory in Smethwick is to know you are somewhere special. Tumbledown Victorian buildings, a ramshackle organisation of streets. The blackened brick of Birmingham, the slanted rooftops and tall, imposing workshop gates. You find your way to the right door – at least you’re pretty sure it’s the right door. As you walk inside, perhaps the first thing you’ll notice is the smell. The waft of grease and metal. The rich and sumptuous scent of leather. What seems like a billion little pieces of steel, all tangy and rich against the backdrop of the dusty factory floor. And then of course there is the sound. The ring and clang, the hum and judder. The noise of machines in full flight, operated by artisans. People with the know-how, the experience, the practised hands that sometimes seem to flicker between each part of the process without actually moving.
Photo: Luca Semeraro
The machines themselves are remarkable. Punchers and clampers, cutters and tampers. There is a way to make anything, it seems, beneath the eaves of this workshop space. Some of them have words painted on, words that will mean something to any Brooks aficionado. Here is the one for making B17 back plates. Over there is the one for shaping the leather top of our Flyer model. And everywhere around are bins and buckets of bits. Springs, rivets, countless leather tops. As they move through the building, the saddles take shape. Finally they arrive on a rack of finished products.
Photo: Luca Semeraro
Photo: Sam Walker
Much of this process has been unchanged for 50 years. How is it like this? Why haven’t things changed? Against a backdrop of dwindling manufacturing on British shores, how does this miracle place persist? As much as anything else, it’s to do with a process. Far-flung factories can make metal pieces cheaper. They can mimic a design and buy the same machines. Their labour costs less, too. But what cannot be copied is the mysterious art of leatherwork, the generational knowledge and expertise that is passed down from one craftsperson to the next. To work a piece of leather is not a precise thing – and that is precisely what makes this place special. The craft takes decision-making and experience, a human touch.
Photo: Luca Semeraro
Photo: Sam Walker
Brooks was delighted to welcome Luca Semeraro and Sam Walker for a private tour of the factory in Smethwick. They were invited as part of a series of visits from Brooks dealers from around the UK and Europe, and captured all the photographs you see in this article. We were delighted to show them where the saddles that they have been selling and using for years came from – an essential way of strengthening our important bond.