Forest Hill is a quiet, mostly residential district in southeast London. But behind one white facade on Dartmouth Road, Mr Jones Watches creates humorous, whimsical timepieces.

Crispin Jones, 52, has said he didn’t intend to start a watch brand. “I thought maybe,” he said, “there could be something interesting to use inexpensive manufacturing, but in a creative way, which was my background, the creative use of technology.” (He holds degrees in sculpture and computer-related design.)

In 2007 he found a factory in Hong Kong that would accept a 500-watch order, so he designed five watches and ordered 100 of each. One, called The Accurate, had the phrase “remember you will die” in lowercase lettering perched on the hour and minute hands.

The watch sold out at 85 pounds (now the equivalent of $112). Mr. Jones recalled, “People kept mailing saying, when will you make more?”

So he did. Now the Forest Hill workshop and a second one in Camberwell, South London, create all the watch parts, except for the cases and movements bought from suppliers, and assemble them. (At Forest Hill, the work is done under the watchful eye of Stanley, Mr. Jones’s friendly 8-year-old dachshund.) There also is a boutique in Covent Garden, which offers free engraving, and an online shop that ships worldwide.