About

Everything started in a garage in Dorset.

Ruby and Mary, undated Ruby and Mary, undated
Chapter one

The Garage

Every Saturday morning, without fail, I could be found in my grandfather's garage. Bernard Winch - retired woodwork and metalwork teacher, endlessly patient, and quietly brilliant - had a way of turning a pile of raw components into something that made sense. Growing up in Dorchester, Dorset, that garage was my classroom. I didn't know it at the time, but everything I would go on to build began in there, with oil-stained hands and a grandfather who never once told me I was in the way.

Bernard had a gift for making things - properly, carefully, with an understanding of how materials behave and why craftsmanship matters. That stayed with me.

It still does.

Chapter two

Loughborough and the Long Way Round

The passion Bernard lit in me pointed me toward engineering. I went on to study Manufacturing Engineering Management at Loughborough University, graduating in 2009 with a BEng (DIS). I was ready. What I wasn't ready for was the world I graduated into.

2009 was the height of the recession. Finding a job was like finding a needle in a haystack. I looked all across Dorset - nothing. So, on something of a long shot, I applied for a position at a CNC precision workshop in Kent. Within 72 hours of applying, I had packed everything I owned and moved across the country. I moved in with my partner's parents, started the job, and fell completely in love with it.

CNC machining had everything that had drawn me to my grandfather's garage - precision, problem-solving, the satisfaction of making something exact. It felt like coming home.

The finishing bench The finishing bench
About

Named for two grandmothers. Made for the houses they would have lived in.

The Railway Arch The Railway Arch
Chapter three

The Railway Arch

After two years at the workshop, I knew I wanted to build something of my own. In Peckham, South London, underneath a railway arch, I started a small CNC manufacturing business. It was modest, noisy, and entirely mine.

I took on sub-contracting work - all sorts of components - and the business grew steadily. In 2019, I moved back to Kent, setting up a new workshop in Tonbridge. It was around this time that I started to notice something. Among all the parts I was making, it was the architectural hardware - the handles, the pulls, the small and considered things that people touch every day - that I kept coming back to. I had a flair for it.

More than that, I cared about it.

Chapter four

When Everything Stopped

Then Covid hit. Like most small business owners, I found myself facing something I hadn't planned for. My wife and I sat with the uncertainty and, instead of waiting for it to pass, we decided to build something new from it. That decision became Clemo + Finch.

The name carries the people who shaped us. Clemo comes from Ruby Clemo - my grandmother's maiden name. Finch comes from Mary Finch - my wife's grandmother's maiden name. We wanted the brand to carry the weight of the people who came before us, the same way my grandfather's garage had always carried his. Both Ruby and Mary were formidable women.

The names felt right.

When Everything Stopped When Everything Stopped
About

Named for two grandmothers. Made for the houses they would have lived in.

Made to Last Made to Last
Chapter five

Made to Last

Every Clemo + Finch collection is named after a village or town - drawn from the landscapes of Kent and Cornwall that have run through both our families. The places we know. The places that feel like something. We make solid brass architectural hardware. Not because it's fashionable, but because it's honest. Solid brass doesn't just last - it outlasts. Strong enough for a lifetime, timless enough for the next. Like everything my grandfather ever showed me, it is built to last.

Clemo + Finch exists because two families, two grandmothers, one garage in Dorset, and one railway arch in Peckham all pointed in the same direction.

— Michael Winch, Founder

Chapter four

When Everything Stopped

Then Covid hit.

Like most small business owners, I found myself facing something I hadn't planned for. My wife and I sat with the uncertainty and, instead of waiting for it to pass, we decided to build something new from it. That decision became Clemo + Finch.

The name carries the people who shaped us. Clemo comes from Ruby Clemo - my grandmother's maiden name. Finch comes from Mary Finch - my wife's grandmother's maiden name. We wanted the brand to carry the weight of the people who came before us, the same way my grandfather's garage had always carried his. Both Ruby and Mary were formidable women. The names felt right.

When Everything Stopped

WHAT WE HOLD TO

Four things we won’t shorten.

01

Solid brass.

Solid billet, bought from United Kingdom.

02

Hand-finished.

Each piece is brought to its finish by a person. Finishes vary.

03

Made to be lifelong.

Made without compromise.

04

Quiet by intent.

The work is the argument.

FOUNDER

“A handle is the only piece of architecture you touch every day. We thought that was worth thirty extra minutes at the bench.”

— Founder, Clemo and Finch

Finish Samples

Order a finish sample. Decide with it in your hands.

Each sample is hand-finished and dispatched within 5 working days.

Order a sample

The Collection

View all