The Henley boutique at 8a Bell Street has been on this street since 1988, when Joan Jackson opened the second Anthony Paul boutique a step from the Market Place. The signet rings, the bespoke commissions and the antique cabinet are all served by the Windsor workshop a few miles down the Thames, where Nick has held the master goldsmith’s bench for twenty years. Three generations of the same family; every handmade piece produced on our own Snowdonia hydro power.
Carbon-neutral at the bench. Every handmade Anthony Paul piece is made at the Windsor workshop on power from our own micro-hydro plant in Snowdonia. 350,000 kWh a year, enough for a hundred homes, passes built through the weirs for brown trout and eels.
Read about the hydro ↗Five shapes (oval, round, cushion, square, shield), five metals (silver, 9ct yellow, rose, white, platinum). Heads cut 3mm or deeper to take a working seal. Made to order in Windsor, four-week turnaround. Engraved at the bench in initials, monogram, family crest or full coat-of-arms.
01Designed at the bench by Nick, master goldsmith, thirty years in the trade. CAD when the stone calls for it, traditional hand-working when the design calls for that. Sentimental stones reset into modern mounts.
02Joe Jackson curates the antique stock across all four boutiques and the Henley window leans hardest on this side of the business. Hallmarked British, dated, provenance noted. The cabinet refreshes monthly with pieces bought in from estates and individual sellers.
03Resizing, claw rebuilds, pearl restringing, hand engraving, written valuations for insurance, gold buying. The vast majority done at the Windsor bench rather than sent out, which is unusual for a four-boutique group.
04A signet is the piece most modern multiples have stopped making properly. A signet should be cast or struck with a head of three millimetres or more, in metal heavy enough to take an engraver’s burin without spreading, hallmarked at the assay office, then engraved, by machine if you want a clean monogram or by hand (in reverse) if you want a ring that actually seals wax.
We make ours in five shapes, oval, round, cushion, square and shield, across silver, 9ct yellow, 9ct rose, 9ct white and platinum, in heads from 11 by 9 millimetres up to 20 by 16. Each ring is made to order at the Windsor bench. Four weeks at the bench, then engraved to your sketch or your family crest, then dispatched or held for collection at the Bell Street counter.
Anthony apprenticed as a goldsmith in Ascot in 1978. His passion for jewellery started in the 1970s, watching his mother run her antiques business. He opened the first boutique in 1982, was joined by Corina in 1986 to open the Windsor flagship and the workshop above it, and in 1988 his mother Joan Jackson opened the Henley shop at 8a Bell Street. Henley has been on Bell Street ever since.
Today the boutiques are led by Anthony’s sons, George and Joe, the third generation of Jackson jewellers. George works closely with the Windsor bench. Joe runs the antique buying that fills the Henley cabinets. The micro-hydro plant they built in Snowdonia between 2016 and 2019 means every handmade piece they send back from the bench is produced on Welsh renewable energy.
“You can’t tell what they’re going to do when they’re young. I’d hope they’d go into it and they have done, so I’m really, really pleased.” Anthony Jackson on George and Joe
Bring the brief to Bell Street: the stone you already own, the sketch in your phone, the ring of a grandmother’s you want remade. The consultation happens in Henley with one of the team; the sketch, the wax model and the bench work happen in Windsor with Nick. CAD when the geometry calls for it; hand-working when the design calls for that. Finished pieces come back to Henley for fitting.
One project we will mention because Nick is proud of it: a five-carat old-cut diamond ring remade after thirty years of daily wear. The mount had failed but the stone mattered. Nick replicated the original design exactly, so the customer’s ring looked the same the day she collected it as the day she first wore it.
A short form for an indicative quote by email and a consultation booking at 8a Bell Street. Final quote always at the counter when we see the brief or the piece. Bring your ring sizer, your reference photographs or the family crest if you already use one.
8a Bell Street
Henley-on-Thames
Oxfordshire RG9 2BG
Phone · 01491 575 821
Email · enquire@anthonypauljewellery.co.uk
Park · Bell Street is the lane that climbs north from the Market Place to St Mary’s Church. Greys Road and Kings Road car parks are a three-minute walk.
Three other boutiques · Windsor (the workshop), Maidenhead, Marlow.
Closed Mondays across all four boutiques. That is the goldsmith’s working week: Tuesday opens the counters, the workshop closes pieces on Monday.
Yes. The signet head shape determines what fits cleanly. A shield head takes a full coat-of-arms, a cushion or oval takes a crest or monogram, a round head takes initials or a single device. Hand-cut by a seal engraver if you want a working wax seal (the engraving has to be cut in reverse so the impression reads correctly); machine-cut if you want a decorative monogram. Bring in a sketch or a sealed letter the family already uses, we’ll quote either route.
Made in Windsor. Nick, our master goldsmith, has thirty-plus years in the trade and twenty-plus at our bench. Casting, setting, polishing and hand-engraving all happen at the workshop above the Windsor boutique. The only work occasionally sent out is the most specialised seal engraving and full-laser hand-finished work where a specific named hand is the right fit. We tell you in writing before the job starts.
9ct gold is the standard for a working signet because the alloy is hard enough to take an engraving without spreading over time. 18ct is softer and engraves more crisply but the seal will round off faster with daily wear. Silver is the entry point. Platinum is the long-game option, hard-wearing but the engraving requires a specialist hand. We’ll talk through what the ring is for (wear-every-day, occasion, seal-stamp) and which metal serves it best.
Yes. Bring the piece into Henley, Windsor, Maidenhead or Marlow, no appointment required. Joe assesses it for the antique buying programme; if it suits the cabinets we offer to buy it, if it does not we offer scrap-gold value against the day’s assay-office spot price. Written valuations for insurance are a separate paid service, turnaround two weeks, fee dependent on the piece.
Bring it to Henley. The consultation, the sketch, the quote and the final fitting all happen at 8a Bell Street with one of the team. The actual remaking goes up to the Windsor workshop on the next bench transfer (usually within the week) and the finished piece comes back to Henley for collection. You do not need to make a separate Windsor trip.