Independent watchmakers · Larkhaven
About forty mechanical watches a year, made by seven people in a two-room workshop on Tinsmith Row. Every edge bevelled by hand, every screw blued over a flame, every movement taken apart twice before it leaves.
Larkhaven 38 Steel · heat-blued sunburst · from $4,200
The collection · Batch 07
We make each model in small numbered batches and stop when the batch is done. Prices include a fitted travel case, a second strap and the first full service.
No. 01 · Time only
The one we wear ourselves. Three hands, a sunburst dial and a case thin enough to slide under a cuff.
Price: from $4,200
No. 02 · Two time zones
Home time on the blue arrow, local time on the hands. Grade 5 titanium, so it weighs less than the strap.
Price: $6,900
No. 03 · Column-wheel chronograph
A hand-wound chronograph you can watch through the back: the column wheel turns a sixth with every press.
Price: $11,800
No. 04 · Openworked
We cut away everything the movement can do without, then bevel every new edge we made. Ninety hours on one winding.
Price: $13,900
Engraved case backs, a dial in a colour you bring us, a date you want kept. We take six commissions a year.
Ask about a commissionCalibre V-11 · Inside the Larkhaven
Scroll, and the watch takes itself apart, layer by layer, then puts itself back together.
Finishing · By hand, at the bench
A machine could make every part. It cannot make one shine like this. About a third of the hours in a Vellmar go into surfaces you only see with the case open.
Overlapping circles, spun into the mainplate with a peg of hardwood and diamond paste, one at a time.
Parallel waves drawn across the bridges in a single pass, so the stripes run unbroken from one bridge to the next.
Every edge filed to a 45° bevel and polished, including the inward corners no machine can reach.
A surface so flat it looks black, until the light finds the angle and the whole part flashes white.
Polished steel laid on a brass tray over a spirit flame, and lifted off the moment it turns cornflower blue.
Fine lines brushed out from the centre of the dial, so a bar of light swings around it as your wrist turns.
The workshop · Since 2011
Ilse Marrow and Tobin Vell started Vellmar above a hardware shop on Tinsmith Row with one lathe and a borrowed timing machine. We are still at the same address, now with both floors.
Each watch is built start to finish by one watchmaker, who signs the inside of the case back. We take every movement apart after its first two weeks of running, clean it, and build it again before it is cased.
Servicing · Every five to seven years
Any Vellmar, any age, comes back to the bench it was made on. We service other independent mechanical watches too, when we have room.
Thirty minutes on the timing machine with you there. Free, and you leave with a written quote.
Every part apart, through four ultrasonic baths, then inspected under the loupe.
Five oils, eleven jewels, a new mainspring and gaskets. Worn parts are made again here if we must.
Five positions over six days, within two seconds a day, with a two-year warranty.
Private viewings
An hour at the bench with the watchmaker who would build yours. Try every case and dial on your wrist, see a movement under the loupe, and leave without buying anything.
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