Top British watchmaker Roger Smith OBE is ensuring watchmaking by hand is passed on to the next generation. Reporter Jess Ward gets a tour of his new workshop in the north of the island to view the rare craftsmanship.

Taking vast amounts of time to carry out a single task is unheard of in the modern workplace, with deadlines and production targets being stressed on a daily basis.

Time, however, is the key ingredient used in Roger Smith’s workshop where his masterpieces worth from £110,000 up to £260,000 plus are crafted to perfection - each one taking a year to complete.

You cannot help but feel a great feeling of calm when walking into the countryside grounds of Roger’s new out-of-sight complex, which opened in April.

Greeted by Roger’s smile we say our hellos before making our way to a room which clearly delights him.

George Daniels’ workshop collection is full of curious and rare objects and tools which have been bequeathed to Roger by the late horologist who was regarded as the world’s greatest living watchmaker in his time.

Roger, who was Mr Daniels’protégée, says the room serves as ’a reminder’ of the journey he’s made to reach to where he is today.

’It’s a certain grounding,’ he said. ’We still use a lot of this equipment in the day to day running of the business, but a lot of it is tucked away here and preserved.’

Roger first met George when he was 17 while studying horology at a college in Manchester. His path was heading towards the repair route rather than the creative one before things changed.

’I didn’t know who he was,’ Roger said. ’I asked somebody who said that he made watches by hand, which I didn’t believe was possible because as a student you were surrounded by modern mechanical wristwatches which were all mass produced.’

After George’s visit, Roger could think about nothing else. ’Sounds odd, but he had such an impact on me,’ he explained.

Years later Roger wrote to George asking if he could be his apprentice. He was invited to the island and was told to ’go away and make a watch’. ’And that’s how it all started really,’ said Roger.

After a couple of tries, Roger was asked to move over in 1998 and was taken under George’s wing.

’He was a very nice guy, very helpful. A great teacher, but he had his edge,’ Roger said fondly.

George Daniels completed 27 unique watches as well as the Millennium series up until his death in 2011.

Just before he died, he and Roger created a design to celebrate everything George had achieved in watchmaking. Roger has been creating the 35 Daniels’ Anniversary watches, which he is now in the final stages of.

When asked what it’s like to create a wristwatch, he replied: ’When you’re building a watch you have this idea in your head as to what the watch is going to be. There’s never this sense of impatience, [you don’t think] "oh god this is going to take a long, long time" because you’re just so concentrated on that little part and area.

’It’s a very challenging, very rewarding job where you can create something from scratch.

’If I was a watchmaker today in Switzerland and I wanted to make a case I would go to a case maker in the next village or a dial maker or a wheel maker. There’s all the trades around to support the watchmaker, but George didn’t have that.

’So he had to learn all these individual trades, some 32 trades, and that’s what I had to do because again I had nobody around. You have to become very self-sufficient. All these different skills that took years and years to perfect.’

Unlike his teacher, Roger does not work alone. At the workshop there are 11 staff, including himself, his wife Caroline and four new trainee watchmakers.

Normally 10 watches are completed per year, but Roger says he is looking to increase this - hence the expanded workshop.

There are four series of watches alongside the Daniel’s Anniversary, The Great Britain and the Open Dial (Series Five) watch which Roger has designed.

All have a triskelion engraved into them as they are made in the island.

’People from all around the world recognise it and say "oh I really love that symbol". It’s very identifiable and very powerful,’ he said.

He showed me the engineering room, where the base components for each watch are created by large pieces of equipment with absolute accuracy before being sorted into a kit for the watchmakers to pick what they need.

The lathes room is where very small components are made.

He points out equipment which is about 200 years old which is used to decorate metals.

’It’s trying to pick the best of both worlds,’ he explains and lists his modern and traditional equipment. ’It’s a nice balancing act that I feel we’ve achieved here.’

Siô* Morris, from Wales, has worked as a watchmaker with Roger for two years.

He is currently putting the finishing touches on a Daniels’ anniversary watch that he has been working on for nine months.

He said: ’It’s fantastic working here. If you work with other watch companies it can be the pressure of deadlines and hitting production targets.

Here there’s more emphasis on getting a job perfect because these are very expensive watches,’ he said.

Jonathan Goforth, who is a trainee watchmaker from Hull, said: ’I’ve been working here for four months. I found out about the job when Roger posted about it on his Instagram.’ He said it has been ’a massive learning curve’ as he previously did repairing and servicing of watches. At that moment he was finishing a gold hand.

’When it comes out of the machine there are little imperfections I need to finish off using a degussit stone file. It’s my first time doing one so I’m quite nervous because it’s gold. It think it can take a day maybe to do one hand.

’It teaches you patience and its quite relaxing. It’s a nice feeling when you’ve persevered with it and something looks perfect. You can see your results and you feel part of the company.’

Roger has dedicated his time to teach new generations about quality watchmaking, including posting videos on to Youtube to help those in the industry.

His dedication has led to him receiving an OBE from the Prince of Wales this month.

’The whole thing has been surreal. I can’t believe I got it. To me I’ve just been working and enjoying myself, but to have that recognition it is very welcomed.’

At the end of the tour he hands me a microscope, I peer through to enjoy the different whirring and bright parts of his Open Dial wristwatch.

The blue and purple hues and the golden finish are incredibly pleasing to the eye.

’The idea of creating that watch was just to show the level of craftsmanship that we go to because normally all that work would be hidden under the dial,’ he tells me.

’Watches like the ones we’re making it’s not all about timekeeping, it’s about how beautiful the mechanism is. It’s a work of art in itself.

’You’re not just making a functional item, it’s something which has history and technology and has a life of its own.’

Siô* Morris working on the Daniels anniversary watch dk181127(32)