Hands-On: the Beaucroft Element “Forest Green”

Since their founding in 2020, Beaucroft has worked to blend historic timekeeping techniques with a bit of modern style to create watches at an affordable price point and attract a new generation of watch enthusiasts. Located in Cambridge, England, this independent British brand has partnered with Horologium for final assembly, testing, and regulation, creating a collection of watches with notable British provenance.

Beaucroft’s newest watch, the Element, aims to become your new “GADA” (Go Anywhere, Do Anything”) watch with a touch of modern flair while retaining classic sport watch features. With six different dial colors currently available, you can find an Element to be as bold, or as stealthy, as you want.

Within the independent and micro-brand space, first impressions of a brand are a critical moment in the relationship with the consumer, setting a tone that will either be reinforced or broken over time. For many consumers out there, the unboxing of a watch is often this first impression, as many of our favorite brands ship directly to consumers. While unboxing the Beaucroft for the first time, I was greeted with a dark teal leather service pouch, embossed with Beaucroft’s logo on the front flap. While service pouches are quite common in the industry, I always like seeing one included with a watch as it allows your watch to have a transportable “home”, for those moments when it does leave your wrist.  More so, it gives an appearance that the brand knows their watch won’t always be on your wrist, but wants to ensure you’re able to keep it in top shape for as long as possible.

Looking over the Element, I was immediately drawn to the “three tiered” dial with its sunburst finish.  Starting from the outside and working your way in, you’ll find an angled and color matched chapter ring which features individual minute markers, with numbered intervals for every five minutes, allowing you to quickly glance down at the watch and figure out where you are in the hour. Just below the chapter ring is a “platformed” disk that has cutouts for the raised, and lumed, hour indices, before stepping down to the innermost circle of the dial. Within this innermost dial, you’ll also find an applied metal Beaucroft logo in the upper center position, the same one on the service pouch, and a printed “Beaucroft Cambridge” logo in the lower central position. Speaking of the indices, this watch features 13 applied indices around the inner circle (one for each hour, with the 12 o’clock position having two). Each of these indices, along with the hour and minute hands, feature BWG9 super-luminova and are diamond cut and have been plated in rhodium for an impressively reflective silver finish. In almost any lighting condition, at least one segment of the indices or hands was able to catch and reflect light, and it often felt like bits of the watch were “glowing” impossibly bright throughout its time on my wrist. However, in contrast to the dial and polished hands and indices, Beaucroft chose a mint lacquer for the second hand which we’ll talk about more in a second.

Thanks to the sunburst finish mentioned above, the dial of this watch takes on many different shades of green throughout the day, as light hits it at different angles and refracts. During my time with the watch, I’ve seen everything from a dark, rich green (reminiscent of dense pine forests) when viewed from the side, to a significantly lighter, almost minty green in direct light. Since this dial appears to have many different colors, the mint seconds hand will either blend in while in direct, top down light, or stand out when you view the watch from an angle. I feel its important to note that even when the seconds hand “stands out” against the dial, I simply mean that its easy to spot at a glance, not that its a shocking or glaring difference in color

Moving to the watch case itself, you’ll find that it’s made of hardened steel and has a typical “field watch” design, with a steel bezel that protects its double domed sapphire crystal. Keeping the same attention to detail with the external finishing, Beaucroft carefully selected a ring along the bezel and a facet along the side of the case for polishing, creating a similar multi-tiered appearance for the case. In the standard 3 o’clock position you’ll find an engraved crown, with Beaucroft’s logo,  which screws down to give this watch its 200 meters of water resistance. Some people might think that 200 meters of water resistance is overkill, but for a watch that is made to GADA, I think it makes perfect sense, especially when the watch is under 12mm thick. 

While all of the aforementioned attention is clearly visible, Beaucroft didn’t slack off with the often hidden case back. Starting with an engraved logo in the center, Beaucroft expands the artwork with a circular wave pattern, which appears to be heavily inspired by the Japanese seigaiha pattern. Around the outer edge of this pattern is a more traditional engraving of Beaucroft’s name, model, and reference number. Overall, I find the case back to be very visually pleasing, even if it’s something I wouldn’t expect to see often.

Despite how good the Element looks, the true test of this watch (or any watch for that matter) lies in seeing how it feels on your wrist. After all, what good is a beautiful watch if you never wear it? Starting out at 20mm between the lugs, the bracelet quickly tapers down to a reasonable 16mm at the clasp, which has on the fly micro-adjustment. Slipping the watch on my wrist, I noticed that it was a tad snug on my 6.5” wrist, which was quickly remedied with one notch of the micro adjust.

As a photographer, watch enthusiast, and admittedly new watch reviewer, I like to think of watches in three main avenues when evaluating them. Does it look and photograph well? Does a watch offer reasonable features for its price point? And lastly, does the watch meet any marketing claims made by its manufacturer? First, I think the Element line of watches look fantastic while offering plenty of color options to suit anyone’s presences. Visually speaking, the double domed crystal fits the aesthetic of the watch, but the lack of anti-reflective coating causes some glare while shooting it, especially in bright light. Secondly, I think this watch offers an impressive list of features for its retail price point. While the 200 meters of water resistance, relative thinness, and micro adjust clasp are impressive, I think that the multi-tiered design of the dial really sets it apart from comparable watches at similar price points. With claims of being “a watch ready for ‘the beach to the boardroom’” and embodying “everything it takes to be a ‘go anywhere, do anything’ watch”, Beaucroft set high expectations in my mind. While my initial impression was that Beaucroft succeeded in delivering such a watch, the additional wrist time really drove that point home, as the fit, finish and wrist feel instilled confidence that the Element would survive anything I could throw at it. I’ll openly admit that I’ll always have a full watch box, if not several, but the Element could be a wonderful “one and done” option for someone who wants to have a watch without wanting to build a collection of their own.

With fall in full swing, and winter starting to show its face in the city, I’ve been looking for any patches of greenery that have managed to survive the changing of the seasons. Well, looking might be the wrong word, it’s really more like hunting for any patch of green life to contrast the cold, grey and brown landscape that I can’t seem to escape. As such, I was immediately drawn in by the vibrant green dial which felt like spring to me. And while the dial is what first caught my attention, further inspection continued to reveal features that I’ve come to admire. The large and tall indices were very easy to read, and stepping into our dark studio, the lume came to life, a gorgeous bright blue contrasting against the visually dark dial. Had the watch not been on my wrist, the double indices at twelve o’clock would have allowed me to quickly orient and read the watch face. While I personally like the bracelet, I feel that the Element line of watches would greatly benefit from having a rubber or sailcloth option. Overall, I’ve greatly enjoyed  my time with the Beaucroft Element and will certainly keep an eye on them as they continue to grow and establish themselves in the industry. Beaucroft