Switzerland, and particularly Geneva, may be the centre of the world when it comes to the design and manufacture of watches, but plenty of other places are notable for their contributions to the art. 

Glashutte in Germany is home to some high-quality brands and some pioneering engineers. Tokyo in Japan is the birthplace of Seiko, overseer of a number of brands ranging from utility to luxury and the creator of high-beat mechanical movements. 

But since the world sets its watch via Greenwich, let us start in Britain, the country that saw the dawn of timekeeping.  

The growth of the British Empire owes a huge debt to British horology. Watchmaker John Harrison created the first British chronometer and used it to calculate how to find longitude at sea. This enabled Captain James Cook to make his voyages of discovery in the late 18th Century and established the navigation practices that advanced Britain across the globe. 

From then until the beginning of the 20th Century, Britain led the way in both design and manufacture of watches. In 1800 more than half the world’s watches, 200,000, were made in London, and the world’s most famous watch brand, Rolex, was founded in London in 1905, before relocating to Switzerland. 

The Great War saw Britain’s great engineers turn their attention to battle and the watch industry stagnated so much the country was never to catch up with the rapidly growing manufacturing capabilities of the rest of the world. The United States and Switzerland had begun the mass production of watches. 

Britain has lost too much ground to ever compete with Switzerland and Japan as far as volume of production is concerned, but great strides are being made to compete on quality. 

There are still several notable watch producers in Britain. Bremont is perhaps the best known. Many people judge the ability to manufacture movements as the very definition of a serious, luxury watch company. Bremont has designed its own movement, and many of its parts are produced in the UK, but some of them are still imported from Switzerland.  

Another company aspiring to produce everything in the UK is Garrick. The Norfolk company was only established in 2015, but it has already designed its own movement in collaboration with Swiss watchmaker UhrTeil. Garrick is still small, selling around 70 timepieces a year ranging from £2,500-£50,000. 

At the very height of the art horology, one of the world’s most respected watchmakers is Isle of Man based Roger Smith. His mentor was George Daniels, creator of the coaxial escapement employed so brilliantly by Omega. Mr Smith makes a small number of watches, by hand, from scratch. They cost around from £100,000, if you can find them. 

For something a little out of the ordinary, a timepiece with a different heritage and of great quality, sometimes it pays to look a little closer to home than Switzerland.