Clayfield Construction Limited was formed in 1976. The company came together when John Watson met up with Tony Craven at a Round Table Charter Dinner.

Brothers, Geoff Watson and John were already in business as Watson Contractors, a company started by their father in 1934. This was originally a plant hire company that moved into Groundworks and Civil Engineering.

Tony Craven was working as a Contracts Manager for a well known South Yorkshire company, but was looking for a new challenge.

So, between Geoff, John and Tony a new company was formed - Clayfield Construction Limited.

The first contract secured by Tony was for works on Lyngarth Garage, Sprotbrough, Doncaster, who specialised in vintage cars. Tony remembers the job well, because apparently having organised ground workers to dig footings in a heat wave, the hot weather came to an abrupt end, the heavens opened and washed their good work away. Not long after completing the garage, a contract was secured with Doncaster MBC to build six bungalows in Stainforth. Since those early days the Company has gone from strength to strength.

The Company is proud of the fact that many of our employees who joined the firm in the early days are still with us today. Our longest serving employee, Tony Craven is still the Company's Chairman and Joint Managing Director.

In May 2006 John Watson relinquished the position of Chairman but remains on the Board as a Non Executive Director. His brother Geoff retired from the Board in 1997 at the age of 60 to pursue his love of golf and buying and selling plant equipment. Geoff's son, Richard BSc also worked for Clayfields for nearly 20 years.

Tony's son Matthew BSc (Hons) Commercial Management and Quantity Surveying, was in May 2006 appointed to the Board. Before joining the board Matthew had worked at Clayfields as a Contracts Manager since 1999, Matthew is now the company's managing director.

Two of our founders, John Watson (L)
and Tony Craven (R) circa 1976, the formation of Clayfield Construction
Limited.