Shop Marchwood Guitars at Eddie's Guitars

Marchwood Guitars is the one-man workshop of Oliver Marchant, a luthier who studied art and design in Farnham before he began building guitars in 2013. He now works out of Brighton, East Sussex, UK, and he takes every handmade acoustic from first sketch through construction, voicing, finish, and setup on his own bench. That single-maker approach is the whole point. There are no production compromises, only an instrument shaped by one person's eye and ear.

Marchwood offers two body sizes: a mid-sized OM and a smaller 00. Both are available with 14 or 12 frets to the body, and the OM can be built with a 25.34" or 24.75" scale. The construction is where these guitars stand apart. Sides are laminated with flax fiber fabric between the layers and pressed in a vacuum, which strengthens them and helps with acoustic isolation. The neck is joined with a bolted mortise and tenon reinforced by carbon fiber bars and an inlaid truss rod. Each top is voiced by hand through careful brace carving, and the rosettes are their own showpiece, from traditional marquetry to hand-engraved patinated copper and even photograms. The guiding idea is that a guitar should look as good as it sounds and feels.

If you love small-bodied acoustics, or simply want a modern handmade guitar that doesn't look like anything else, Marchwood is worth a conversation. Contact Eddie's Guitars to ask about Marchwood availability or to set up an appointment to play one.