London’s finest gin owes its start to the Hammersmith shed we discovered
Garages are rarities, garages help sell houses… but garages in west London often boast the kind of backstory that inspires folk songs
Take the modest-looking one-storey brick-built shed in Nasmyth Street, Hammersmith, with its blue doors, rusty padlock and peeling paintwork.
It doesn’t look like much, but 12 years ago, in that leased lock-up, three pals built the first new copper still in the capital in 200 years, and created Sipsmith gin.
It has been such a success that the boys sold the business to a drinks giant for £50million.
Now, while I don’t want to claim the credit for the gin (although sample bottles are always welcome at our offices at 172 King Street and 18 Turnham Green Terrace…), it was Horton and Garton that found the Brackenbury Village lock-up for the entrepreneurs. No wonder founder Sam Galsworthy called their journey ‘a rocket ship ride’ with Sipsmith now the favoured tipple of many of us on a spring or summer evening.
And it’s not the only garage drinks success. Brewdog, which began in a shed in Scotland, is now valued at £2billion.
Every tycoon seems to have made use of a garage at an early point in their business – from Walt Disney to Steve Jobs, Bill Gates to Jeff Bezos.
And while relatively few homes in Chiswick or Hammersmith boast of a garage, the magic of those sacred little creative hubs is being replicated during lockdown in back-garden home offices and spare bedrooms.
What sheds say about us
Sipsmith may have moved to larger premises in Cranbrook Road, Chiswick, but the Hammersmith Society has recently been celebrating the key role that other tiny free-standing sheds and light industrial units play in our lives.
The Society has highlighted the fact that many big names in music began rehearsing in west London garages, surrounded by oilcans, tins of screws and offcuts of wood, including The Who, The Clash and The Sex Pistols, while Island Records and Island Studios began life in a small unit in St Peter’s Square.
But it’s the internet giants that really catch the imagination. A humble garage with an up-and-over door was where Steve Jobs started Apple, now the most valuable company on the planet, worth $2trillion (that’s 12 zeros!).
With Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and Walt Disney all starting out in garages as well, there’s clearly something inspiring about focusing your energies in a little brick building separate from the cares and woes of day-to-day life.
If it proves one thing, it’s that thinking space matters, and that sheds, lock-ups and garages are valued way beyond the cost of the bricks and mortar.
Garage battle in Wellesley Avenue
An interesting battle is taking place over the former Aston Martin garage in Wellesley Avenue, where the Brackenbury Residents’ Association and Hammersmith Society are opposing its replacement by a three-storey office block in a small residential street.
A petition is rapidly gaining signatures, with the underlying message being that homes are urgently needed, not more office space in an era where more of us are discovering we can work part of the time at home.
Years after his success, Sipsmith’s Sam Galsworthy says he still tips his hat to Horton and Garton when he passes our office.
I just hope we can inspire the next generation of creative talent to achieve as well, as we slowly emerge from a year of lockdowns and restrictions, and start to dream again.
