About
A small optician on Marlowe Street, since 2009.
Nadia Aston opened Brillmoor after ten years of twenty-minute eye tests in a chain store. The idea was simple: take longer, sell less, and explain more.
Why we started
Take longer. Sell less. Explain more.
The shop used to be a watch repairer’s. We kept the long workbench, which is now where we fit frames, and turned the back room into a lens workshop so we could stop waiting for labs.
We stock around three hundred frames from about a dozen small makers, most of them family businesses in Europe and Japan. We would rather know the people who make our frames than carry every brand.
Everything else follows from having enough time: proper eye exams, honest advice when you don’t need new glasses, and repairs for frames we never sold.
Timeline
Seventeen years, briefly.
2009
Brillmoor opens in the old watch repairer’s on Marlowe Street.
2013
The lens workshop opens in the back room. Turnaround drops from three weeks to five days.
2016
Tomas joins and starts a children’s clinic on Saturday mornings.
2019
An OCT scanner arrives, so we can look at the retina in 3D.
2023
The online frame finder launches, built from a decade of fitting notes.
2026
Over 9,000 patients and still one shop. We plan to keep it that way.
How we work
Three rules we try not to break.
01
Time over targets
Nobody here is paid on commission. Exams are booked for forty-five minutes and we don’t count frames sold.
02
Say what we see
If your prescription hasn’t changed, we’ll tell you to keep your glasses. It happens more than you’d think.
03
Fix before replace
A new screw is free. A new frame isn’t. We always try the screw first.
The team
Four people, one shop.
Nadia Aston
Optometrist, founder
Tomas Reyes
Optometrist
Jess Whitfield
Contact lens optician
Owen Pike
Lens technician
Come and say hello.
No appointment needed to browse, try on frames or get your glasses adjusted.