Soul & Country

 
 

Rawside has its manufacturing heritage firmly rooted in South London – from our initial tiny workshop in Wandsworth, to one slightly bigger, to our final workshop at the Old MOT centre in Kennington Park.

When we moved into the Old MOT, we couldn’t believe how much space we had and were pretty sure we’d be comfortable for at least 5 years. How wrong we were! Within 2 years we realised we needed more space and so we decided to look for some warehouse space outside London to allow us to hold more stock and manage our logistics and fulfilment.

 
 

We found a lovely, albeit rather run down, warehouse in a little place called Ropley on the edge of the South Downs National Park in Hampshire. It was perfect, so in February 2020, we bought it. Then something happened! Our timing couldn’t have been better – we weren’t able to deliver any of our orders, but we were able to safely house our customers’ products until restrictions lifted.

Never ones to twiddle our thumbs, we spent our covid hiatus drawing up plans and gaining permission to build 2 more warehouses, with the vision that we would use one of them to house our workshop.

 
 
 

We started the building work in November 2021 and by the end of March they were complete and ready for us to get them prepped to house our brilliant manufacturing team and their many machines. We also had the space to put in an order for 2 brand new CNC machines – a huge upgrade on our existing one (which we have kept as he’s been an absolute work horse and we love him) and allowing us to greatly increase our production capacity.

After many sleepless nights and days of planning for every eventuality, we powered down the Old MOT on 16th June. The lorries turned up to load all of our gear, and we said a very fond farewell, with our Sales and Marketing team waving the lorries off (yep, they’re staying in Brixton), and we all raised a few glasses in honour to our Old MOT.

By the following Wednesday, the machines were in, powered up and the guys were making once more – a week ahead of schedule. Every one of them with massive smiles on their faces, revelling in the space, comfort, and functionality of their new working environment. It was great to see and made all the effort so very worthwhile.

And it wasn’t just the Rawside team that made this happen, we had an amazing group of contractors and artisans that helped us, so a big up to the teams at:

 

  • Flegg

  • Gtec

  • Hemmings Construction

  • Laser Industries

  • Mezz One

  • MFL

  • Seed Electrical

  • SJ King Plumbing & Heating

  • Soulful Creative

  • Sussex Ceilings

  • Wood Waste Control

They were all brilliant and we couldn’t have done it without them.

 
 
 
 

So now that we’re in, what does that mean for Rawside? We will always have a presence in London and will continue to invest there to make our showroom better than ever. With the relocation of our workshop and fulfilment to Ropley we are able to be in complete control of the impact our facilities have on the environment like never before. We will have zero wood waste as we have installed a briquetter so we can use our wood dust to heat our factory (and keep others nice and toasty). We are in the process of installing rain water harvesting so that we put minimal pressure on this most precious resource and next year, we plan to install solar panels to our lovely south facing roofs and use natural energy to keep us powered up.

On top of that, with the additional space we can stock a lot more product and with our belting new machines, we can increase our production capacity so that we can reduce lead-times and get our products to our customers as quickly as we can. With all of our production and fulfilment teams in one place, we can also be super-efficient and focused with our quality control.

So while we can no longer claim to be “built in the city”, we’re definitely more than ever “made with soul”.

We can’t wait to welcome you to Ropley soon for a serious Soul and Country experience.

 
 
Rawside Team