Our Suffolk Workshop, Mickfield

Stonham Road, Mickfield, Stowmarket, Suffolk, IP14 5LS.

Every piece of Bryn Hall furniture is made here, and has been for thirty years. Not designed here and made elsewhere. Made here, start to finish, including the polishing.

Viewings are by appointment. Ring 01449 710500 or send us a message and we will find you a time.

What happens in the building

The whole sequence runs under one roof, in the order set out on craft.

Timber. Boards come in and are stacked to settle before anything is done with them. Selection happens here, at the stack, against the job in hand: figure matched across a table top, grain run through a set of drawer fronts, character oak picked for its knots or clean oak picked for the absence of them.

Drawing. Catalogue drawings are amended for your dimensions; one-off pieces are drawn from scratch and approved by you before anything is cut. For fitted work, we measure on site first.

The machine shop. Boards planed, thicknessed, sawn to size, joints cut and mouldings run. This is where accuracy is created, and where it is lost if the setting-out was careless.

The benches. Joints fitted, drawers made and fitted to their own openings one at a time, panels raised and fielded, turnings cut, carving done, chairs built up from the seat. Machining takes a piece to within a hair; the benches take it the rest of the way.

Assembly. Dry-assembled and checked, then glued, cramped and squared. Doors hung, gaps set even, ironmongery fitted and then taken off again for polishing.

The finishing shop. Colour built in stages, with drying and assessment between coats. This is where a piece is polished, painted, limed, sand-blasted, rubbed through, left natural, or matched to a sample you have posted to us. It is the part of the building that takes the longest and the part clients find most interesting to watch.

Checking and loading. Every piece is opened, closed, run over by hand and stood on a flat floor before it goes anywhere. Then it is loaded for delivery.

We are not going to publish a list of machinery, a floor area or a headcount, because the numbers would say nothing useful about the furniture. What matters is that all of it happens in one place, under one set of eyes.

Visiting

There is no showroom in the retail sense, and we would not pretend otherwise. What there is, is a working building with furniture in it at every stage: boards on the rack, carcasses on the bench, pieces in the finishing shop, finished work waiting to be delivered.

That is more useful than a showroom for most clients, because you can see the same design at four stages at once, and because you can put your hand on an unfinished oak top and then on a polished one.

What a visit is good for:

Seeing the sections and proportions in the flesh. A nominal 2in top is a different object in person.
Comparing timbers side by side, at full size rather than on a sample.
Comparing finishes on real pieces under the same light.
Discussing a change to a design with the people who would carry it out.
Bringing a piece you want matched, or a drawer out of one, and having it looked at properly.

Bring photographs, dimensions and, if you have it, a plan of the room. Bring paint references or fabric if a colour has to work with something. The more of the room you can bring with you, the more decisive the visit is.

It is a working workshop, so appointments matter. Turning up unannounced is likely to find everybody in the middle of something.

Getting here

Mickfield is a village in mid Suffolk, near Stowmarket. Stonham Road is the address; we will send full directions when your appointment is confirmed.

There is plenty of parking on site, so you can bring a piece to be matched or a boot full of samples without difficulty.

Appointments run from 9.00am to 5.00pm, Monday to Friday.

If you cannot get to Suffolk

Most of our clients commission without visiting, and that is entirely normal.

Samples do the heavy lifting. Timber and finish samples are free, posted out with nothing attached. Hold them in the room the furniture is going into, in daylight and again under lamplight. See samples.

Photographs and dimensions travel well. Send pictures of the space, the existing furniture and any moulding or handle you want matched, with rough sizes. We will come back with questions.

Drawings are approved remotely. For a one-off commission you see and sign off the drawing before anything is cut, wherever you are.

We deliver. Pieces are brought by our own arrangement and put in the room, rather than left on a pallet in the hall. See delivery.