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Royal Ascot is one of Britain’s oldest racecourses, and it is as much a part of British sporting culture as Wimbledon and the FA Cup.  Royal Ascot is the horse racing equivalent of Le Mans, The Monaco Grand Prix and the Indy 500 all rolled into one, staged over five gloriously sunny (or miserably wet) June days.

The spectacle of Royal Ascot is instantly recognisable, the eye-opening parade of ever more unusual hats, the A-list celebrities and international royalty mingling with sporting heroes and the great British public, all dressed in their finest formal wear. It’s almost as though the...

This month, we saw the return of an old friend to the Grant Macdonald London workshop: The Goodman Trophy.

Its story is the very essence of Grant Macdonald’s mission to design and produce gifts and commissions, that are passed down through the years. Whether passed among family members, members of organisations or, as in this case – winners of competitions, in the words of Grant “Silver and precious metals, unlike other luxury items, go on forever. That’s incredibly powerful.”.

The Goodman Trophy was an early commission for the workshop, when in 1970, Mr Everard N Goodman approached Grant Macdonald to...

Grant Macdonald London are proud to support the work of the charity TUSK. ‘Ruaha’, our handcrafted silver lion measuring 51cm long will be auctioned at the TUSK ball at Kensington Palace on 9^th May.  Retailing at circa £50,000, we are delighted to donate this work of art to TUSK.  

How did you first become involved in TUSK?

I have admired the work of Tusk for many years and because of their connections to craftsmanship and the arts, it made perfect sense to work on a partnership with the charity. Silver sculptures of elephants, lions, rhinos etc are nothing new, a...

It’s amazing to consider how many centuries of design and craftsmanship these silver palm fronds represent. Although advances in 3D resin prototyping and engraving technology means our craftsmen can produce pieces that are finer and more detailed than ever before, the core principles of casting and hand chasing the silver into a realistic palm frond, are the same now as when London’s Silversmiths first established the capital as the centre of the silversmithing world, back in the late 1600s.

What’s really amazing is, even...

Fine bone china remains as remarkable today as it was over two hundred years ago, when the first English potters pioneered the use of bone ash in the creation of porcelain. It’s generally reckoned the legendary Staffordshire potter Josiah Spode first perfected the process of making fine bone china around 1790, by experimenting with the mix of clay and minerals used in traditional potteries to make a product that was stronger and more heat resistant.

Spode’s magic ingredient – bone ash...