NIVO: Night Invisible Varnish Orfordness
A more, appropriate, patriotic colour is hard to imagine.
Jutting out into the sea off England’s South East coast lies a unique land mass known as Orford Ness. The technical term for it is a cuspate foreland shingle spit, the largest of its kind in Europe at 10m (16km) long. It is characterised by a series of parallel shingle ridges, huge salt marshes and cold war-era military structures complete with decaying infrastructure, separated from the mainland by the river Alde/Ore.
Photo credit: John Fielding. License: CC 2.0
During World War II, it served, amongst other things as an early warning radar station but it holds more than a few secrets, hidden forever within the slowly decaying structures that remain.
There are brutalist Pagodas that stand as unique concrete “labs’ with domed tops and heavy stanchioned pillars, no doubt made of the strongest materials of the time, designed to contain potentially huge incendiary incidents during the testing and development of nuclear components.
Photo credit: Tony Lockhart. License: CC 4.0
Experimental radio navigation took place at The Black Beacon a prominent octagonal building.
The Bomb Ballistics building needs no explanation and now serves as a rooftop panoramic viewing area for the “Ness’s” diverse natural habitats.
The remains of the Cobra Mist Site are the only remnants of a massive Cold War experimental radar station. Access today is naturally restricted with certain areas and routes open to National Trust visitors who’s only means of access is the river ferry.
Night flying
It was on Orford Ness around 1917 that the Royal Flying Corps station began investigating methods of hiding night-flying aircraft from the glare of enemy searchlights.
NIVO (Night Invisible Varnish Orfordness) started life as an experimental matte finish intended to match the colour and reflectivity of open water at night, blending in with the dark moonlit sea to hide night-time bombers from enemy fighters and searchlights.
It was a dark greenish-grey-blue colour made using yellow ochre, white and ultramarine blue and applied to the canvas covered aircraft to help them blend into the background and become almost invisible. Early night fighters used black paint but NIVO was a more effective alternative and became the signature colour of various British aircraft.
Photo credit: Alan Wilson. License: CC 2.0
At the time, NIVO was part of a broader 70-year history of “boffinry” at Orford Ness including early radar development (Watson-Watt), parachute tests, weapons testing etc. It is recognised today as a key contributor to early aviation warfare.
Eye catching
NIVO’s story captivated us at a time when we were researching the use of specific military colours beyond the usual olive drab, black and desert shades and in many ways, discovering it’s fascinating story was the easy part.
It doesn’t have a modern-day colour reference but we knew which colours were used to create it and set about creating an authentic version we could apply to watch dials with repeatable accuracy. The first watch to carry a NIVO dial was the Holton Professional 101-003-R02/N10.
The NIVO dial served as the nucleus and guided the colour of every external component of this first special edition. The gunmetal PVD case and bezel are paler, the hands are flooded with SuperLuminova® mixed in a blend of old radium to provide a softer hue with a subtle nod towards the period, that blends perfectly with the dial. We kept the dial and bezel batons in high contrast C3 X1 SuperLumonova®, faithful to the original Holton Professional ‘issued’ model.
The result is uniquely Elliot Brown in history and character, offering the sort of high grade, night time performance a watch of this calibre deserves.
A more, appropriate, patriotic colour is hard to imagine.
View all our current NIVO models
Sales of the NIVO Holton instantly hit the top spot blessed with the Holton’s extraordinary pedigree and complimented by this unique hue.
“It all hangs together so well, softer, less overtly military but packed with the sort of subtle story telling we love so much. It’s such an easy match for any choice of dress or occasion” - Alex Brown, Co-Founder.
Our good friend Jason Heaton at the Grey Nato and Substack.com wrote a great piece about the NIVO Holton that he named “Stealth Fighter”. His last paragraph sums it up nicely.
In Jasons words:
“I haven’t written a proper watch “review” in a very long time. More recently, my articles about watches, mainly divers, have been thinly veiled travel adventure stories in which I wear a watch, often underwater or on a mountain. I’ve long felt that the true worth of a watch is how it makes you feel, what it inspires you to do, and the adventures you have with it. This rather long writeup is a bit of a departure. I didn’t take the watch diving, or backpacking, or overlanding, despite it being perfectly suited for any such activity. But maybe that’s the point. The Holton NIVO is all about potential. It’s a watch that, right out the box, inspires confidence in its durability, and its utter disdain for coddling and care. You’ll notice that the features of it that I wrote about are things like a uniquely grippy bezel, small crown, rubber strap design, and quartz movement shock protector. These are clearly things directly influenced by the watch’s intended use. Anything I could do with it, or to it, wouldn’t come close to its capabilities, whether that’s bagging a peak, a deep wreck dive, or, perhaps, sneaking into Orford Ness—at night, over moonlit water, naturally.”
Read the full article here
