Rich pickings of elite gun maker

There are people – usually very wealthy people – for whom a tailored gun is as much a part of life as a tailored suit from Savile Row.

For more than two centuries they have made their way to Birmingham, home of the legendary Gun Quarter, to the firm of Westley Richards where their sporting guns are made to measure.

Every gun is individually designed and made for each client, from traditional side-by-side shotguns to precision hunting rifles. The team of highly skilled men in the Westley Richards workshop tailors each gun to its owner's needs, from the bore and the barrell length to the type of lock and trigger mechanism, the walnut stock shaped precisely to fit the user's shoulder down to the design and style of engraving.

But, like a tailored suit, this kind of personal service doesn't come cheap. You can buy a decent shotgun for a few hundred pounds, but even the most basic Westley Richards gun won't leave you with much change from £20,000.

Most customers will be looking at a price tag somewhere north of £30,000 and up as far as £120,000. And those clients tend to buy them in pairs.

Managing director Simon Clode makes no excuses for the expensive nature of his products, which are the result of combining old-fashioned craftsmanship with modern development work.

His boast is that: "We are often copied but rarely equalled. Almost every gun now made uses many of the innovations developed by Westley Richards, though few will ever match our quality.

"Our people are craftsmen with decades behind them, and we take time and trouble recruiting and training our apprentices for four or five years," says Simon.

In the same way that those hand-made suits from tailors in Savile Row have never gone out of fashion, despite cheaper off-the-shelf competition, hand-made guns from Westley Richards continue to find favour.

"We are always busy," he says. "We have just completed an £800,000 order for a client in the Middle East. Even at a time of world recession, we are receiving a non-stop stream of orders. I think it is probably because the sort of people who make up our client list are, on the whole, recession proof.

"We only make about 30 or 40 guns a year – in Victorian times we made hundreds and had a staff of 200. Now we have 60. But we are satisifed: we have a good clientele and the guns we produce are still superb examples of what can be done by craftsmen in Birmingham."

Westley Richards' two biggest rivals are both now owned by international luxury goods brands – Purdey is part of the Richemont group, which owns Cartier, while Holland & Holland is owned by the French cosmetics group Chanel.

Westley Richards may not be quite as famous but the family business is a byword for quality among sporting shots around the world.

In America and the Middle and Far East, its firearms grace the gun cupboards of the rich and famous, particularly those who know and understand quality gunmaking. Founded nearly 200 years ago, the company has just moved home, leaving its rabbit warren Victorian premises in Bournbrook – soon to make way for the new Birmingham hospital relief road – to a £5.5 million showroom, workshop and factory complex in Pritchett Street, on the edge of the city's traditional Gun Quarter.

The new showroom, rich with the smell of leather and polished wood, is a testament to two centuries of shooting lore, complete the with skull of an elephant shot by a hunter using one of Westley Richards' more powerful cartridges.

Westley Richards is a singular, very individual kind of business.

Bought by Simon Clode's father, Walter, in 1957, the company has quietly forged its own path, ignoring the high spending advertising methods of its rivals and content to be recognised as one of the best gunmaking firms in the world by the people who make up its client list.

In 1997 it was able to open up its first new office in half a century – catering for its US customers.

The company's most recent change of address – only the second since William Westley Richards starting making guns in 1812 at premises in Birmingham High Street, overlooking the old Bull Ring – had been a possibility for a while.

Simon explains: "For 20 or 30 years a relief road has been on the cards in Selly Oak. It was one reason why we didn't really invest in the old building: we never knew from one year to the next whether we would have to move or not.

"When the plans were finally approved for the road, we came to an agreement with the council and moved to this three-quarter-acre site in Pritchett Street. We also moved our sister company, Westley Engineering, under Gerry Dunne, to the new site."

While the Gun Quarter was once home to nearly 600 gunsmiths' businesses, these days there are just a couple of small workshops in the city with Westley Richards the last remaining firm of any size.

But, in the wake of its multi-million pound investment in the future, the company is looking to the future. Simon, 52, who was recruited to the firm 20 years ago and took over as managing director after his father retired, was joined by his 28-year-old daughter Karena in 2005.

"This move gives our business a fresh lease of life. We have better facilities and an impressive new showroom and I hope it will see us into another century at least," says Simon.