Students from the Chelsea Academy visit our London jewellery workshop
Last Tuesday we had a school visit from the Chelsea Academy, an outstanding Academy in South West London, as part of the Walpole’s Luxury in the Making Schools Programme. We are enthusiastic supporters of anything that gets our schoolchildren interested in the art of making things. We do love passing our knowledge on and if we can enthuse some school children and encourage them to get involved in our industry then even better.
We desperately need skilled craftspeople in this country and the only way we are going to have them is if we pass our skills on. We gave them a small overview of our company. Explained that running a business was all about raising your profile so that people know about you, not just making things (the bit we like best) and using social media.
We then moved into the workshop where our workshop manager Gerry showed the students how to make a simple ring by shaping a bit of silver wire, then soldering it and polishing it with a bit of annealing along the way. After that, Alice one of our skilled jewellers set a diamond in a silver heart for them, so they could see how we set stones. The trouble is our jewellers always make it look so easy… The students all had a turn looking through her microscope. Finally, we engraved something for them with their school name on it. We really enjoyed their visit and hope they got something out of it too.