Interesting. As an aside, I bought a Bramble G9 from J. Simons recently. Love it. The big difference I notice is that the lining is all cotton rather than the polyester of the Baracuta (even the Made in England models have polyester lining, albeit with cotton exterior).  The Bramble jacket is much, much lighter.

We've had lots of suitable weather here for a G9, and I've found myself going for the Bramble every time. I only wish they made it in navy.

I do, however, miss the fraser tartan of the Baracuta, which the Bramble lacks.

Last edited by BulldogNH (2009-04-03 21:34:19)

I see the Bramble as a work in progress. The entire point of it should be that it's better than a Baracuta. At the moment I 'm not sure that's the case.

I think the colours of the knit parts aren't quite right: they should be as close as possible to the colour of the waterproof parts, which they do not seem to be. A nice zip would be good too.

Agreed that the Bramble zipper could be better. I never paid much attention to the knitted cuffs.

For all of you real hard core guys I supposed you could get the zipper replaced with the one Baracuta uses by a tailor...  it's not worth the trouble to me.

I'll try to snap a picture of mine later..

Fred, you say Bramble has supposedly been making these for years. Do you know a) whether they're sold outside of J. Simons (will we still be able to get them if J. Simons closes in June, which at least I heard it still would do) and b) whether the cloth Grenfell uses to make them is actual Grenfell cloth, as in the original that was basically waterproof?

Yeah, I like Grenfell too. I've got a trench and a mac from them.  You can order a trench through suitsmen.co.uk for 450gbp but last I checked J. Simons had a few Grenfell trenches on sale for 350 gbp or thereabouts.

The reason I ask about the Bramble is that J. Simons told me they don't have navy, and I would like to find one.

Has anyone seen the rather bizarre ad Grenfell have on their site?  Guy apparently about to shaft a lady...  true!