It started with swords.
Pallet wood. After school. On the farm my family calls home.
Quinta de Sant'Ana · est. 1633
Four centuries of timber
and Atlantic wind.
My home, where nature taught me what was worth making.
The Workshop
Wood shavings underfoot.
Linseed in the air.
My grandfather's workbench.
The shop taught me what wood could become.
The Festival
Every year, the farm held a harvest festival. Every year, I had a stall.
Swords first. Then toys, tools, small furniture. Anything people asked for.
Nine summers, nine stalls sold out. By the time I left for university, I'd been making and selling for half my life.
Nottingham, England
BSc Business and Management
A detour.
By year two, I knew. My hands missed the work. But I finished what I started.
Return to Gradil
Degree in hand, I came home.
That summer, I went back to the bench. No plan, no pressure, just wood and time. Wine cellar by day, workshop by night. The work came first. The rest followed.
Then opportunities started to come.
Cloughjordan, Ireland
Apprentice, Carpentry | Barman
A wedding venue in the countryside.
A workshop out back.
In Ireland, I learned about men and machines.
West Devon, England
Apprentice, Woodworking
Barn doors. Honest work.
In Devon, someone knew someone. That's how I found Rupert Bevan.
Ludlow, Shropshire
Apprentice, Rupert Bevan
Two years. Discipline.
Notting Hill showroom. Ludlow workshop. High-end furniture for clients who accept nothing less than perfect.
The standards were unforgiving. They had to be.
Time well spent.
Lisbon, Portugal
Classical Training, FRESS
The old ways.
Back in Portugal, I enrolled at Fundação Ricardo do Espírito Santo Silva (FRESS) in Lisbon. Centuries of Portuguese craft, distilled into method.
A phrase I kept hearing: madeira e alma. Wood and soul.
Time to come home.
Gradil, Portugal
Founder, Jeremy Frost
The same workshop.
A new chapter.
Twenty years on, I've returned to the bench—
and stayed.
Today, Jeremy Frost takes on a small number of commissions each year. Pieces shaped by decades at the bench, and made to be handed down.
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