A beautiful, crisp autumnal day in the bucolic Hampshire countryside: blue skies, leaves turning golden.
Laverstoke Mill is an immaculately preserved Victorian factory complex with mature trees all around and the crystal clear River Test coursing through its heart. As the production site for Bombay Sapphire gin, the setting is almost too good to be true. Close your eyes and try to picture a drinks factory – I imagine some hulking corrugated processing plant on the outskirts of Slough. Instead, this is the industrial equivalent of Ridley Scott’s Hovis commercial.
As one walks to the heart of the factory along the banks of the babbling river, thick with rushes and purple flowers, one can only wonder at the incredible good fortune that its buildings are all so well preserved, and how lucky Bombay Sapphire has been to be based here through the centuries…