Growing up around his family’s joinery business gave Adrian an early familiarity with wood and handwork. In the late 1970s, he studied architecture, developing the understanding of structure and form that would later become an important influence on his instruments. He also worked as a joiner before beginning to build guitars in 1990 under the tutelage of Roy Courtnall, learning traditional Spanish classical construction methods. He established his own guitar-making business around 1995.

Adrian’s contribution to the craft extends well beyond his own workshop. He illustrated Roy Courtnall’s Making Master Guitars, a book that became an important reference for classical guitar makers. He taught electric guitar making at Newark and Sherwood College from 1998 to 2001 and returned to Newark College in 2008, teaching classical and steel-string guitar making until 2022.

Teaching became an important part of Adrian’s own development. Working closely with students required him to break the complex process of making a guitar into understandable steps, while helping each student solve the particular challenges presented by their instrument. The exchange of ideas within the college workshop expanded his thinking and encouraged explorations beyond the boundaries of his own work.

Adrian has also played an active role within the wider international guitar-making community. A member and former board member of the European Guitar Builders, he was closely involved in organizing the Holy Grail Guitar Show in Berlin and establishing its Local Wood Challenge. The initiative invited makers to build instruments using woods from their own regions, demonstrating that local and non-traditional materials need not represent a compromise in sound or craftsmanship. He has also contributed to research and collaborative projects exploring reclaimed, local and alternative tonewoods, including the Leonardo Guitar Research Project and the Community Acoustic build.

Music continues to connect every part of Adrian’s life. He remains an active local musician and performs in a band with his wife, Elizabeth Bennet. Playing regularly keeps him grounded in the practical and emotional relationship between a musician and an instrument, reminding him that a guitar is ultimately completed not at the workbench, but in the hands of the person who plays it.