Cubitts opens London optical manufactory in a Victorian stable complex

Cubitts has opened The Yard at 6 Blundell Street in King’s Cross, a more than 13,000-square-foot optical manufactory that folds frame making, lens production, bespoke consultation, repair, training and exhibition space into one address. The London brand is making a pointed argument against disposable eyewear culture: in its version of luxury, the real polish lies in ownership with stewardship, the kind that lets a pair of spectacles be adjusted, repaired and kept for years.

The site opened on Thursday, June 25, 2026, in a former Victorian stable complex once tied to the Crosse & Blackwell vinegar brewery in the 1880s and later used as an office for a publishing house in 1985. Cubitts calls it the only spectacle-making workshop in central London, and the building’s layered history feels perfectly chosen for a label that has always treated spectacles less like throwaway accessories than objects of daily uniform. A new David Shrigley mural now marks the space, adding a sharp contemporary note to the restored brickwork and underscoring the brand’s habit of pairing craft with culture.

Founded in King’s Cross in 2013, Cubitts says its mission is to modernize a three-century-old spectacles industry by combining innovative technology with traditional craftsmanship. The company also frames The Yard as a return to London’s optical past, pointing to the city’s position as the optical capital of the world in the late 1920s, the first optical workshops in Clerkenwell in the mid-18th century, and 15th-century Trig Lane bone spectacles as the earliest pair ever discovered in London. It is a lineage that suits the old-money eye: quiet, exacting, rooted in continuity rather than novelty.

The move had been in motion months earlier. Estates Gazette reported in August 2025 that Cubitts leased the three-floor, 13,148-square-foot Old Brewery at the address on a 10-year term. Cubitts’ careers page lists 152 team members, 13 London stores and 18 UK stores, while a 2025 employee survey cited there found 82 percent proud to work for the company and 97 percent saying they get on well with colleagues. The Yard now reads less like a flagship than a working house, consolidating design, production, glazing, repair and training under one roof. In eyewear, as in the best wardrobes, permanence is the new status symbol.