Robert Welch at Fistral Beach

When Robert Welch left the Royal College of Art in 1955, he set up with just his drawing board and a camp bed in a little rented room in a disused workshop in the 18th century Silk Mill at Chipping Campden in the English Cotswold Hills.

From the start, Robert was passionately driven to design highly functional, affordable products which possessed a timeless elegant beauty. He demonstrated this with his first major success - pioneering the introduction of stainless steel cutlery to the UK.

He steadily gained a reputation for excellence in both design and manufacture which lead to a constant stream of commissions - both commercial and privately from celebrities and royalty.

In the decades that followed, he was joined by designers, prototype makers and craftsmen. Together this small loyal team were responsible for many iconic designs still enjoyed today. This success allowed Robert Welch to expand the business across the whole top floor of the Mill and also establish a studio shop just around the corner.

Today’s Robert Welch team are fortunate enough to still be working in the same building where it all began 60 years ago. Robert Welch’s passion to create beautiful, functional, timeless products remains rooted in the company’s design DNA, ensuring his memory lives on and that every new product continues to be ‘Designed the Robert Welch way’.