40 years in the trade. Built from scratch in 2022.

After leaving school in 1985, I completed a five-year indentured apprenticeship with a joinery company in Reigate, Surrey. It was a proper old-school training — learning the trade from the ground up, by hand, the way it had been done for generations. That foundation has shaped everything I've done since.

Over the years that followed I built a reputation for high-quality work and moved to London, where the commissions grew in scale and ambition. During my time there I worked on properties for some of the most discerning clients in the country — including Sir Elton John, Countess Mia Flick, and Viscount Linley. That kind of work demands an uncompromising standard of craftsmanship and an eye for detail that most joiners simply can't match.

In 2001 I moved to Somerset and spent several years working for a specialist joinery company focused on churches, cathedrals, and listed buildings. That kind of work — restoring and replicating historic joinery in some of the country's most protected buildings — teaches you things you can't learn anywhere else. Matching centuries-old profiles, working with traditional methods, understanding how timber moves and ages. It's a discipline that demands absolute precision and a deep respect for the material.

In May 2022 I founded The Somerset Craftsman — bringing together everything I'd learned over nearly four decades in the trade. Today we make fitted furniture, internal doors, wall panelling, and bespoke cabinetry for homeowners across Somerset, Dorset, Wiltshire, and beyond. The commissions are different from the cathedral work, but the standard — and the care that goes into every joint — is exactly the same.

Our workshop is based in Somerset, where we have the space and the equipment to make furniture properly. We have a full joinery shop with traditional and modern machinery, a dedicated spray finishing facility.

Having our own spray shop on site is something very few joiners in the South West can offer. It means every piece we make — whether it's a fitted wardrobe, a set of internal doors, or a run of wall panelling — is finished to a standard that's impossible to achieve with a brush on site.

We're happy for clients to visit the workshop. If you want to see how we work, discuss your project in person, or choose a finish from our sample boards, just get in touch and we'll arrange a time.