Our Story
Newgate Clocks was founded in 1990 by Jim and Chloe Read, starting out in a flat above an antique shop in Oswestry, Shropshire. What began with a set of second-hand framing tools and a pound-each clock movement from an Exchange & Mart advert has grown into one of Britain's most distinctive design-led clock brands.
For thirty-five years the company has been making clocks that are worth looking at. Not just functional, not just decorative, but genuinely considered objects, designed with care and built to last. The range runs from bold graphic wall clocks to clean modern mantel clocks and alarm clocks, each one shaped by the same instincts that have driven the business from the start.
Newgate is still independently owned, still designed in Shropshire, and still run by the people who started it. No outside investors, no corporate pressure. Just a team that cares what things look like.
Chapter One - Where It All Began
Newgate Clocks was founded by Jim and Chloe Read. What began as a kitchen table decision in 1990 grew into one of Britain's most distinctive creative brands, known for its clocks, eyewear, and design-led accessories. From a small flat above an antique shop to international recognition, this is the story of the couple who turned timekeeping into an art form, and in the process built a company with character and heart.
Newgate's story begins in Shropshire, in a house filled with the energy of small business. Jim Read grew up surrounded by objects and enterprise: antiques, music, electronics, and the constant hum of new ideas. His parents ran everything from antique shops to a jazz club and even a toy museum, as well as a musical instrument shop, TV, video, hi-fi, and record store. Work and creativity were inseparable, and invention was normal life.
That upbringing shaped his view of the world. The line between craft and business didn't exist and everything could be an experiment. After art college, which he was kicked out of just before completing, Jim worked on a building site before setting up a small shop selling fashion accessories in one of his father's shops, then helping to run the family TV business. It was there he met Chloe.
Chloe, whose parents were also antique dealers, spent her childhood being hauled around the country on buying trips, squeezed into the back of roof-racked estate cars loaded with unusual antiquities: Chinese lacquered boxes, bamboo tables, camphor wood trunks, and the occasional rocking horse. She grew up watching dealers haggle, barter, charm, bluff, and strike deals with effortless instinct.
After finishing her A Levels, Chloe was expected to study business at university and get a proper job, but lectures felt lifeless. She wanted something real. Three months in, she quietly left the course, found a shop job in Oswestry, and soon joined Jim in both life and ambition.
Chapter Two - A Pound a Movement
The two began scheming ways to make and sell something of their own. Their first venture was picture framing. Jim sold his Mini Moke for £2,000 and used the money to buy used framing equipment from a man in Manchester. They taught themselves how to cut glass, mount prints, and make frames.
It was hard work for little or no profit. But one evening, leafing through Exchange & Mart, Jim spotted a small advert selling quartz clock movements, battery-powered mechanisms for about a pound each.
That simple discovery changed everything. By fitting a clock movement into their frames, they turned an ordinary picture into something that felt valuable and alive. A framed clock sold for more than double the price of a framed print. It wasn't just decoration anymore. It had a purpose.
From that point, the idea of time became central to their work. They made a small batch of clocks, experimenting with old imagery, typography, and varnish, and shared a stand at a trade fair in Harrogate. They had just four weeks to design, build, and package enough samples to show. They named the fledgling business The Clockwork Company. Orders came in from a handful of small retailers, and for the first time, they saw their work alongside other makers.
It was the moment Newgate was born, even if the name hadn't arrived yet.
Chapter Three - The Name Above the Door
After the Harrogate trade fair, orders trickled in from independent gift shops and small department stores. The pair continued to work out of their flat above Jim's father's antique shop, Newgate Antiques, adjacent to Oswestry's ancient New Gate.
Because they shared the telephone line with the shop below, they began answering calls simply as 'Newgate.' The name stuck almost by accident. It sounded strong, English, and timeless, the sort of name that could belong on a clock face or a building. It carried heritage, but it wasn't pretentious.
When they began selling to more retailers, they formalised the name as The Newgate Memorabilia Company. Later, as the designs grew more refined, they dropped the 'Memorabilia' and simply became Newgate Clocks.
At a trade show at Alexandra Palace, one of their new collections was a series of framed silhouette clocks in thick gilt frames. Among the visitors was a buyer from Harrods. She admired the pieces, asked a few questions, and two weeks later an order arrived. Seeing Harrods printed on an order form was surreal, validating that what had started in a Shropshire flat could hold its own in one of the world's most famous department stores.
For the first time, Newgate felt like a real company, still rough around the edges, but with a voice of its own.
Chapter Four - America
Not long after Harrods placed their first order, the DTI invited them to join the British Shop at the Atlanta Gift Mart. The idea of selling clocks in America felt impossibly exciting and despite little experience and even less money they signed up.
Jim returned from each trip brimming with design inspiration. American architecture, typography, signage, and the cool design-led stores felt years ahead of the UK. This fed directly into Newgate's early aesthetic.
They met Greenbrier, a husband and wife team who wanted to distribute Newgate in America, and launched the RCL and RCS ranges: gilt, wooden-framed school-style clocks that struck a chord with the US market. Greenbrier secured promising orders from mail order companies including Ballard Designs. Momentum was building.
Later, via a British trade mission to the New York International Gift Fair at the Jacob Javits Centre, they took solid orders and generated excellent leads from Pottery Barn and Williams-Sonoma. American buyers were flocking to their UK stands too, especially after the Rusty Cogger launch, with queues forming on opening day and some placing purchase orders on the spot, almost unheard of. Pier 1, Sam's Club, Pottery Barn, and Design Toscano were all eager to carry their line.
But the story took a defining turn in September 2001. A week before the attacks, Jim and Chloe had been in Windows on the World at the top of the North Tower of the World Trade Centre, sipping cocktails with fellow exhibitors. Seven days after they left New York, 9/11 happened. Trade shows collapsed. Travel froze. The American market ground to a halt. America wasn't abandoned, but it was paused.
Chapter Five - The Rusty Cogger
As the business grew, so did the ambition. Newgate's early clocks carried the character of the people who made them: creative, slightly eccentric, and distinctly British. Both founders had been raised in families of antique dealers, surrounded by old shop signs, enamel advertisements, railway clocks, and faded lettering. Those influences found their way into Newgate's work naturally.
The early clocks were entirely handmade. Each face was printed, laminated, aged, distressed, and varnished. Imperfections were celebrated rather than hidden. If the varnish mottled or the print wasn't perfectly aligned, it added to the sense of authenticity.
The Rusty Cogger, launched in 1999, was made from resin but finished to look like aged metal, corroded, pitted, and weathered. When they first exhibited it at the NEC, visitors couldn't believe it wasn't iron. People would touch the surface and then wipe their hands, expecting rust to come off.
It became one of Newgate's most successful products. It was more than a bestseller. It was a statement of intent. It proved that Newgate could make something that felt both old and new, industrial and elegant, British and exportable.
Orders grew, as did the client list. Habitat, Heals, Liberty, and the Conran Shop joined Harrods as stockists. By the end of the decade, Newgate had found its look: bold, graphic, rooted in heritage but executed with wit and modernity. No one else was doing quite the same thing.
Chapter Six - Going Global
By the early 2000s, Newgate had matured. It was no longer a kitchen table operation but a recognised name in British design, with clocks appearing in department stores, design boutiques, and interiors magazines. But success brought new challenges. Manufacturing in Britain was becoming increasingly expensive, and large retailers wanted consistent pricing, faster turnaround, and guaranteed supply.
The decision was made to explore manufacturing in Asia. After a 16-hour flight to Hong Kong, a day waiting for visas, and an eight-hour bus journey to China, they finally arrived at the White Swan Hotel, only to find their rooms had been given away. They were upgraded to the presidential suite, previously slept in (as the visitors' book confirmed) by Queen Elizabeth II, Richard Nixon, Margaret Thatcher, Bill Gates, Fidel Castro, and George Bush. Chloe, eight weeks pregnant with their first child, was eternally grateful for the room service.
As the business expanded, production increasingly shifted to China, where an emerging network of skilled factories could produce the same craftsmanship at scale. Jim and Chloe spent years flying back and forth, sometimes with the kids in tow, inspecting factories, negotiating contracts, and learning the complex rhythm of global production.
Chapter Seven - Jones
As Newgate grew, it became clear there was a gap. Large retailers loved the Newgate aesthetic but needed it at a lower price point. Rather than compromise the Newgate name, Jim and Chloe created Jones Clocks as a separate brand with its own identity: friendly, accessible, and cheerful, with the same attention to design detail.
The name came from a throwaway line. Jim jokingly suggested 'Jones the Rag' to his sister and brother-in-law who were naming their new textiles business. They hated it. 'If you like it so much,' they told him, 'you use it.' So he did.
With a strong first range ready by 2004, Jones gathered momentum quickly, being picked up by virtually all the UK's supermarkets and DIY sheds. Jones became a reliable, approachable brand for larger retailers, while Newgate retained its design prestige and independence. Two brands, one creative heartbeat.
Chapter Eight - The Years of Beautiful Distractions
By the mid-2000s, Newgate was thriving, which for Newgate meant it was time to stir things up. The company had always been driven by invention rather than routine. Games, mirrors, photo frames, and wall art followed. Some ideas were genuinely brilliant; others were expensive lessons.
A Chinese lacquer photo frame range was fabulous but the level of quality control required was brutal, as the lacquer showed every dent and scratch, and the range was eventually discontinued. Frameless mirrors with vintage typography were years ahead of the industrial wall art trend but breakages were constant.
Newgate Arthouse emerged in 2015, a range of canvas prints inspired by vintage educational wall charts, printed in-house at Glovers Meadow. The look was brilliant, but manufacturing them alongside the main operation simply didn't stack up. After a few years the range was quietly shelved. It was a lesson in scale: just because something looks beautiful doesn't mean it works as a business.
After a few years of detours, the team made a conscious decision to focus again on what they did best. Diversification had been educational, but clocks were still the heartbeat of the business.
Chapter Nine - Wrist Deep
For years, people had said the same thing to Newgate: you should make watches. The company was known for its distinctive clock faces, bold numerals, and clean lines. Turning that design language into something wearable seemed inevitable.
Over seven years Newgate launched four very different watch collections. The first and arguably strongest was the original range: the Bulldog, the Drummer, the Electric, the Ship, the Club, and the Cube. Big, bold, unapologetically British. Launched at the International Spring Fair in Birmingham in 2015, styled on a stand like an old thrift shop with vintage pegboards and old scientific glass cabinets. A few Bulldogs were stolen from the stand, which was almost funny as none of them even worked, they were dummy prototypes.
Later collections refined the aesthetic, and Newgate exhibited at Baselworld in Switzerland alongside Skagen, Junghans, and Daniel Wellington. The third range was the G6 chronograph collection, named after Jim's grandfather Eddie Read's radio ham call sign. Eddie had been a key figure in early British radio intelligence at MI5's base at Hanslope, and the tribute ran quietly through the design.
Despite the heart and craft poured into every collection, the fashion watch world proved hard to crack. Brands like Daniel Wellington and Olivia Burton had already conquered the space, and the Apple Watch was beginning to signal the decline of fashion watches altogether. The years spent trying left Newgate stronger and wiser, even if the watches never became the business they might have been.
Chapter Ten - Glovers Meadow
In 2007, Newgate bought a disused 20,000 square foot Laura Ashley factory just around the corner from their existing premises in Oswestry. A few days before Chloe gave birth to their third child, Lola, the deal was done on Glovers Meadow.
The next ten months were spent transforming it. Stylish double-storey offices were built, new pallet racking installed, a design studio and showroom created. Jim and Chloe scoured Newark Antiques Fair for vintage furniture, industrial lighting, neon signs, blackboards, and film props. Visitors arrived expecting a typical factory and walked into a world that felt vibrant, curated, and unmistakably Newgate.
Then in September 2008 the financial crisis hit, just as they had paid a premium for the new building and were midway through spending a quarter of a million pounds on the fit-out. With a heavy mortgage, collapsing banks, and a bleak horizon, it was a frightening moment in Newgate's history. But they kept designing, kept creating, and after a wobbly 2008, entered 2009 with surprisingly strong sales. It seemed that in downturns, brand really mattered.
The company's trade show stands became legendary during these years: a giant pocket watch entrance you had to walk through, a recreated London Underground station complete with tiled walls and signage, a Victorian science laboratory with the sales team dressed in white lab coats. Buyers, journalists, and even competitors came along just to see what Jim had created next.
Chapter Eleven - Going Digital
By the late 2010s, the retail world was changing rapidly. Traditional stores were closing, and e-commerce was reshaping how people discovered design. For a company that had built its success through physical experience, through stores, trade fairs, and tangible design, the shift to digital didn't initially feel like their world. But Newgate had never been afraid of change.
Where other brands treated online retail as a transaction, Newgate treated it as another canvas for design. Each product page was curated carefully, each description written with the same wit and precision that had always defined the physical brand.
Chapter Twelve - The Year the World Stopped
In the week before lockdown, Jim and Chloe had been calling it a good year. Then, almost overnight, everything collapsed. Within a single week, two major customers went under, both owing Newgate significant sums. With fifty staff and a heavy wage bill, they calculated they had a few months of survival ahead.
On 23 March 2020, Boris Johnson announced the national lockdown. Jim and Chloe emailed the entire team and told them to stay home.
What nobody had anticipated was that with the entire country suddenly stuck at home staring at their own walls, online shopping would explode. Newgate's web sales grew. Stockists who had cancelled everything suddenly needed stock urgently. Later in the year the problem reversed, as they couldn't get enough stock and sold out of bestsellers because the entire world was in the same supply chain crisis. Shipping costs jumped from £3,000 to £20,000 per container.
Those months also became a period of rare reflection. With the usual noise stripped away, Newgate turned inward: designing, photographing products, rebuilding the websites, refining every detail. The stillness became a reset. A culture of lean thinking emerged that has stayed with them ever since.
Chapter Thirteen - London Mole and Funkstar Hardware
Launching a new brand at the onset of Covid was probably not perfect timing, but Jim had spotted a genuine gap. After failing to find any cool, affordable reading glasses, encountering only old-fashioned, clinical styles, he wondered how hard it would be to design his own. In 2020, London Mole Eyewear was born.
The first collection consisted of eight frame families in multiple colours and five lens strengths. Retail pricing from around £15. Glasses began selling immediately, slowly at first, then steadily as people returned for more colours and more strengths. It felt scalable. It felt completely different to the watches experience.
With the success of London Mole and strong online growth, another idea took shape: Funkstar Hardware. A new brand under which almost anything could be designed and made, particularly products that lend themselves to discovery and impulse. Umbrellas, games, phone accessories. Everyday objects reimagined with personality and intent. A full range of fourteen umbrella designs has just launched, and more categories are in development.
Chapter Fourteen - The People Behind It All
From the outset, Newgate was never simply a business plan on paper. It was the meeting point of two restless minds who were not prepared to do things by halves.
Jim instinctively feels at home in the design space, wandering through homeware stores in London or New York, looking for gaps, understanding what buyers need to make spaces feel relevant and cool. Travel has always been essential fuel. Trade shows became opportunities not just to sell, but to absorb: a concept store squeezed in between meetings, a brilliantly designed restaurant, vintage finds in markets. He describes it as topping up the brain library.
From the beginning, Chloe became the force behind fulfilment. Orders had to leave on time. Deadlines were immovable. Cash had to return to the business. Customers learned quickly that if they placed an order it would arrive when promised. Reliability built trust. Trust built repeat business.
Design does not switch off at home. At forty, Jim bought brushes, paint, and canvas and began painting in a converted chicken shed, eventually producing more than fifty oil paintings and exhibiting them locally in Shrewsbury at fifty-three. He describes his mind as permanently in design mode, always noticing, always adjusting.
For more than three decades, Jim and Chloe have built the company the hard way, through long days, constant reinvention, and a stubborn refusal to give up when the landscape shifted beneath them. Along the way, many of the companies that once stood alongside Newgate have disappeared. Through it all, Newgate kept moving.
Ask what Newgate is today and the answer is never simple. It is a clockmaker, a design house, a storyteller, and an evolving collection of ideas. It is both an archive of British creativity and a living studio for whatever comes next.
In the end, Newgate's clocks don't just tell time. They tell a story of British ingenuity, of resilience, and of the beauty that happens when people follow their ideas wherever they lead.
And like the clocks themselves, that story keeps ticking.
Part of the Newgate World Family
Newgate Clocks is one of four brands made by the same team in Oswestry, Shropshire.
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Jones Clocks Affordable British wall clocks with real personality. The accessible sister brand to Newgate, with designs for every room and every budget. |
London Mole Eyewear Affordable reading glasses that actually look good. Founded 2020. From around £18 a pair. |
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Funkstar Hardware Fun, design-led lifestyle products. Umbrellas, games, and more, the newest brand in the family. |