The Founders Collection

The Georgian vocabulary, cast in solid brass.

In 1740, Thomas Turner opened a brass house on Coleshill Street, in the centre of Birmingham. It was the first of its kind in the town. Within a generation, the city's metalworkers — who had previously bought their brass in from Bristol — were casting their own. Turner's nine furnaces, fed by Warwickshire coal, made Birmingham a brass city.

The Founders Collection is named for that beginning, and drawn from the period that followed.

The Georgian cabinet vocabulary is precise: a fluted, "melon"-form knob, often mounted on a four-pointed backplate to spread the load across thin period drawer fronts. The cup pull has a deep, simple curve. The drop handle is unembellished, weighted at the ends. The Founders pieces follow that vocabulary closely.

Each piece is sand-cast in solid brass at our Birmingham workshop, and finished by hand. We offer three finishes: polished unlacquered brass (the metal left bare, to age with the house), aged brass (a controlled patina applied at the workshop), and satin brass under a clear lacquer (for high-use kitchens). The unlacquered finish is the one we recommend for owners who want the hardware to take a record of the hand.

The collection is small by design — one knob in two sizes, one cup pull, one drop handle in three sizes. Three pieces in three finishes is, in our experience, enough to specify a kitchen.