John Rigby & Co. has completed its move to 42 Clapham Manor Street, a London headquarters built around its gunmakers and open for visitors to watch them work. The firm announced the move on 1 October, a year after its 250th anniversary, and the building it has made is a statement about how a premium maker now expects to sell: not from a counter in front of a closed workshop door, but from a floor where the client walks past the bench their gun was built on.

What has Rigby built?

The Grade II-listed former ballet school took three and a half years to convert. The ground floor is given to the specialist workshops, arranged so that a visitor can follow a build through woodworking, metalworking and finishing, and the building also houses the Rigby Academy, an engraving studio, a museum and a showroom under vaulted ceilings and exposed oak beams. At the showroom’s centre sits Jim Corbett’s rifle, displayed beneath the glass-topped table on which new guns are presented to clients, so that every new build is handed over above the .275 that made the firm’s name in India.

Managing director Marc Newton said: “Pensbury Place gave us the home we needed to rebuild Rigby, and it will always mean a great deal to us. At Clapham Manor Street, we’ve been able to create the home we imagined for the next chapter of the company. I wanted the gunmakers to be at the heart of it. Visitors will be able to see the skill and care that goes into our guns, then step into a showroom filled with the stories that brought us here.”

Why does the model matter to the wider trade?

Because it inverts the usual arrangement. Most gunrooms keep the workshop out of sight and the showroom at the front; Rigby has put the workshop at the front and made the showroom the room you reach after walking through it. Founded in Dublin in 1775 and building in London since the 19th century, the firm re-established its London workshop at Pensbury Place more than a decade ago, and the order book outgrew it. The new building was planned around the needs of the gunmakers, with their work meant to be seen and understood by visitors, and the investment in a listed building, a conversion measured in years and a museum alongside the benches is a bet that at the premium end the craft itself, witnessed, is what sells the gun.

The Rigby Academy, the engraving studio and the museum under one roof with the workshops also put training, decoration and heritage on the same floor as production, a layout that a smaller maker could not fund but whose logic any gunroom can borrow: the customer who has seen the work values it differently from the one who has only seen the price.

What happens next?

The premises are open at 42 Clapham Manor Street, and the firm’s announcement, with photography of the workshops and showroom, is on its website. For dealers and makers watching how the London houses present themselves, Clapham Manor Street is the latest answer, and the most visible: the benches, the engraving studio and the museum now sit under one roof, and the firm expects visitors to walk the floor rather than wait at a counter.

Useful links

John Rigby & Co. – the announcement and photographs of the new home

Frequently asked questions

Where has Rigby moved to?

42 Clapham Manor Street, London: a Grade II-listed former ballet school converted over three and a half years, which replaces the firm’s workshop at Pensbury Place.

What does the new Rigby building contain?

Ground-floor workshops laid out for visitors to follow a build through woodworking, metalworking and finishing, together with the Rigby Academy, an engraving studio, a museum and a showroom.

What is the rifle in the Rigby showroom?

Jim Corbett’s rifle, displayed beneath the glass-topped presentation table so that every new Rigby is handed over above it.

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