[Barrie Heaton]

on the 2nd of April 2008 Broadwood pianos was taken over by Alastair Laurence. All Broadwood pianos made in the far east will stop and limited production will move back to the UK

the office will be at
John Broadwood & Sons Ltd.
Finchcocks
Goudhurst
Kent
England. TN17 1HH
Tel: 44 + (0)20 01580 212713

Barrie,
_________________
Barrie Heaton
Web Master UK Piano Page

[PianoGuy]

What a nice feller.

Most people upon acquisition of such potentially valuable property would simply licence the name to the Chinese and make some money out of it.

Let's hope the Barless will go into production with the build quality and finesse it never got from the mechanicals at Ladbrookes.

[mdw]

[PianoGuy]

[Barrie Heaton]

He is not going to make them in the normal way as in supplying retail outlets you will buy direct. Production could be in Holland but he would rather have it in the UK but it will be limited

Good luck to him I say


Barrie,
_________________
Barrie Heaton
Web Master UK Piano Page

[PianoGuy]

Best of British to him. Hope it's a success.

But who makes pianos in Holland these days? All Dutch makes are Chinese.

[mdw]

We never stocked them after they moved so cant comment. I agree good luck to him. I cant see it working and think he must be mad to even contemplate it but good luck anyway.

[sirprize]

This is most interesting news! If he concentrates on making top-quality barless pianos (and restoring vintage barless ones) he might very well succeed. 'Barless' was always the true USP of Broadwood and Alastair is a great enthusiast for the concept

[pianobrereton]

This is brilliant news ! and it could work. You can't compete at the bottom end of the market with the chinese .
As Fazioli and Stuart's have demonstrated if you make top quality pianos there is a market for them and they started from scratch , with no history of excellence unlike Broadwoods .
A resurgent Broadwood going back to it's roots and building quality instruments could start a renaisance in English piano building and that would be good for all of us. Alistair Laurance is just the man to do it he was the one who reserected the Broadwood barless design in the 1st place. Im fed up with seeing manufacturing in this country closing down with people saying "its too expensive to manufacture here" well how come the Germans the French and the Japanese can do it with similar economies . Martin Bloor who brought the old clapped out Triumph motorcycle manufacturer back from beyond the grave , proved this wrong.
Triumph like Broadwoods was an old well loved marque that had fallen on hard times due to bad products . By reserching the market and producing well built well designed motorcycles they are back on top again winning a queens award for exports . If Triumph can shake of the bad image they had acquired so can Broadwoods. Good luck to them !

[PianoGuy]

Alastair could well pull this one off.

If you use the Bloor analogy, he'd need to base his design around a good quality readily available 'engine', so maybe using an existing frame and a Renner action could well do the trick.

Additionally it would be great to see the Barless back in production made by real craftsmen rather than Ladbrooke monkeys; maybe the success of a conventional design built properly could fund the latter.

[A440]

He will need some very good advice. I agree he is a very nice chap with perhaps more knowledge than anyone. But he needs to be backed by good financial thinking. His last venture (lawrence and nash) foundered due to little or no management skills. Perhaps a wealthy and understanding backer is what is needed.Yamaha perhaps? (just kiddin') Indeed, good luck!

[sussexpianos]

Ive seen one of the green frame Broadwood uprights he has made recently, made it for someone working for him. I hope it goes well but I know for sure its going to be expensive but the British buyers might spend more to buy British ( they did/do for Kembles).
The actions will probably be Renner but I can only guess that the strungbacks will come from abroad ( Europe)