In 1955 Welch established a workshop and studio in Chipping Campden, Gloucestershire in a silk mill that had formerly been the home of Charles Robert Ashbee's Guild and School of Handicraft. He had chosen this area because it was easy for him to visit the Wiggins' factory in Bloxwich, his parents' home in West Malvern, as well as London – where he would eventually travel for teaching posts, but it would remain a base for the rest of his working life.