Supporting British Industry & Craftsmanship
Traditional woodturners creating staircase spindles and newels by hand. Owner Geoff Nichols joined his father at 15 years old and has been working the lathes ever since.
Describing themselves as ‘old-fashioned’, Nichols Brothers have been working with wood for home interiors for over seventy five years. The company’s workshop facilities in east London enabled them to offer not just standard products, in line with the rest of the market, but a bespoke service, matching exactly existing components or architects’ designs. Stair spindles can be conventionally turned, square turned, barley twist, rope twist, fluted, reeded or hand-carved, and the newels can be produced to match.
"I'm very fond of Nichols Brothers as it's one of the first manufacturers I photographed in Waltham Forest when I started documenting local industry in the borough I lived, over a decade ago. Architectural historian and author Olivia Horsfall Turner had heard that I had made a book for Geoff Nichols, capturing his family business and wanted to acquire one for the V&A archive. This conversation led to me thinking more extensively around the idea of documenting the capital's manufacturers which led to me pitching Made in London to the publishers, Merrell. A couple of months later Hugh Merrell gave me the green light for the book and Mark Brearley and I got to work." Carmel King photographed Nichols Brothers in September 2018 and on several more occasions, initially for an archive book for Geoff Nichols, and later for Made in London.
