WB The Creative Jewellery Group welcomes a royal visitor

WB The Creative Jewellery Group’s manufacturing facility was visited by his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent on 21 September.

The Duke visited the company as part of a day-long visit to Birmingham. He was accompanied by Simon Topman The Deputy Lord Lieutenant of West Midlands, John Hudson, High Sheriff of West Midlands and The Lord Mayor of Birmingham Ms Anne Underwood.

The group was taken on a tour of the company’s state-of-the-art manufacturing facility by operations director Mark Thomas who showed them the different processes involved in creating the precious diamond and gem-set jewellery in gold and platinum.

During the tour, the duke was introduced to Stephen Derby who operates a CNC machine within the company’s prize-winning Wedding Ring Cell; Eleanor Inglefield a diamond setter and Tracey Painter, who works as an Assay Marker within the Group’s in-house Assay Sub-Office which is part of The Assay Office Birmingham.

Mark Thomas said: “I think the duke was very impressed with what he saw. He was clearly surprised by the high levels of skills which he saw demonstrated by our staff and by the sophistication of the technologies employed.

“At one point when I showed him a casting tree he commented that there must be plenty of opportunities during the process for things to go wrong. I responded that we had had 70 years to perfect it – which made him laugh.”