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Gin brand Bombay Sapphire has sunk its heritage stake deeper into the British psyche by establishing a distillery in the heart of the Hampshire countryside. Thomas Heatherwick converted and developed the Laverstoke Mill on the River Test, and has created a visual heart for the visitor experience with two spectacular glasshouses to cultivate the essential botanicals that flavour the gin.

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Words Johnny Tucker

There's something quintessentially British about a gin and tonic. This sceptred isle has a long relationship with the juniper-flavoured spirit from the so-called 'gin craze' of the 1700s right through to the quinine-laced Indian tonic water of the Raj.

These days, new gins, particularly London Dry (a distillation method, rather than a geographic description), are appearing at an almost alarming rate. So maybe it's good to be able to rely on the heritage of a grand old brand like Bombay Sapphire in its distinctive blue bottle, adorned with Queen Victoria spelling out its long pedigree. Well you'd think so, except Bombay dry gin was actually the creation of an American back in the Fifties (admittedly using an historic recipe) and Sapphire didn't appear until a couple of more botanicals were added in 1985.

Thomas Heatherwick standing inside the glasshouse growing the tropical botanicals. Photo: Johnny Tucker

Now Bombay Sapphire (owned by Bacardi), with the help of Heatherwick Studio, has just opened a new facility -- its first dedicated to the spirit and the first full architecture project in England by Heatherwick. It's a mixture of working plant and visitor experience, and with designer's zeal Heatherwick has laid bare the process of creation, rather than create a visitor centre.

Heatherwick's master plan involved the removal of dilapidated twentiethcentury light industrial units, stripping the site back to its Victorian heart. Photo: Heatherwick Studio

In many ways, it's also about creating a stronger, longer heritage for the brand. Bombay certainly doesn't hide the drink's origins and evolution, but there's a certain obfuscation involved and moving into an old Victorian paper mill -- newly adorned with Queen Victoria, in the heart of the Hampshire countryside -- gives it more of a back story. The mill even used to print all the banknotes for the Raj -- no doubt Bombay couldn't believe its luck when that came to light. Just as the botanicals add depth to the gin, Laverstoke Mill adds depth to the brand.

Heatherwick's master plan involved the removal of dilapidated twentiethcentury light industrial units, stripping the site back to its Victorian heart. Photo: HeatHerwick Studio

In physical terms, Heatherwick has stripped back the derelict factory site to its Victorian core. There were 49 buildings originally and 23 were removed during the process to make the site more legible. That still leaves plenty of room for expansion into areas such as artist residencies, events and even weddings. The River Test, which is one of the purest in the UK -- a trout fishing licence will set you back £500 a day -- has been reinstated and made central to the scheme.

Heatherwick's master plan involved the removal of dilapidated twentiethcentury light industrial units, stripping the site back to its Victorian heart. Photo: Heatherwick Studio

And that brings us to the main project element -- the Heatherwick moment. At the heart of Laverstoke Mill now reside two extraordinary glasshouses: one 15m high, the other 11m. They look like they have extruded through the wall of the stillhouse to which they are attached, since they utilise the waste heat from the distillation process to create the right temperatures to grow the botanicals -- 10 plants -- which flavour Bombay Sapphire. There are two of them because some botanicals are tropical, while the others require drier Mediterranean conditions.

An early morning aerial view of the de-cluttered site as it now stands. Photo: Iwan Baan

The two glasshouses have sinuous curves not unlike those of the stills and pipework next door, with a kind of steampunk aesthetic, which also references large-scale Victorian glass structures. From their narrower extrusion out of the wall, they bell out before dropping directly into the river like mid-stream cloches. They are somehow alien and in keeping at the same time.

Aerial view of the vapour infusion baskets showing the arrangement of the perforated copper baskets

In his quietly spoken enthusiastic way, Heatherwick is excited by the fact that he has had the chance to do 'a factory and not an art gallery... There was this derelict paper mill with buildings that had built up like barnacles, layer after layer after layer, over two centuries as production increased. It was a cacophony of structures. When we first came on site we just got completely lost. You could also barely see any river running through the site and buildings had been built over it. The thing we are most proud of is how we've opened up the river again, exposed it and, in some cases, tripled its width.

The orginal copper still and a later copy of it.

'Our logic was that we could use the river for visitors as a navigation device. Instead of having lots of signs, there is an intuitive way through the site following the river.

'Originally they wanted to have a visitor centre, but we actually felt allergic to visitor centres. So in our discussions at the beginning we got excited about letting people visit the real gin distillation process. That's why you would bother to come here.'

The glasshouses hold 793 curved glass sections in 1.25 km of bronzed stainless steel frame. Photo: Iwan Baan

That said, there is a room where people can see, touch and smell the botanicals. It smacks of visitor centre, complete with easily digestible graphics and info panels. This is not actually a Heatherwick Studio part of the project and Heatherwick himself clearly wanted something more subtle and experiential:

The glasshouses' foundations extend down 1.5m below water level, which required construction within a cofferdam driven 12m into the chalk ground. Photo: Iwan baan

'We thought the best way for people to understand about the botanicals was if we actually grew them on the site, and we thought about whether we could use the excess heat from the gin stills to create the conditions to grow those 10 plant species.

So there just seemed to be this logic, and also in Britain we have this heritage of building glass structures -- from Joseph Paxton's original Crystal Palace to the palm houses of Kew. Just these very beautiful glass structures.'

A non-Heatherwickdesigned area near the stills allows people to get up close and personal with the dried botanicals. Photo: Courtesy Bombay Sapphire.

Heatherwick's glasshouses are made up of 793 unique pieces of two-dimensional curved glass, and there are more than 10,000 individual bespoke components. Dropping them into the stream meant diverting the river, and all building work was structured around the life cycle of the trout that inhabit it.

Sculptor Benjamin Dearnley created the new 4m x 3m Queen Victoria brickwork medallion, based on the of Bombay Sapphire bottle labels. Photo: Johnny tucker

The factory-cum-visitor experience also, of course, has a couple of bars -- one VIP -- for partaking of the product, and the de rigueur shop, where if you haven't taken enough out of the experience itself you can buy a little memento alcoholique.

The site has a serenity to it when we visit, on a sunny autumn morning. Let's hope that feeling remains when the visitor car park begins to fill up.