A new venture/adventure has begun for H is for Home this week. We’ve spent the last couple of days moving into the recently-opened Valley Antiques Centre in Hebden Bridge.
We’ve long-fancied having a retail space in Hebden. It’s a lovely little town full of small independent shops; cafés & coffee shops, pubs & bars and art galleries. It’s a great place to spend the day mooching around. We actually lived here when we first moved to Yorkshire from Brighton back in 2000.
Despite recently moving to Wales, it will be nice to maintain an ongoing relationship with the town, Todmorden and the Calder Valley, in general.
We’ve secured a decent-sized space, big enough for furniture and smaller vintage items such as fabric, lighting, artwork and kitchenalia – and all manner of decorative things for the home.
Valley Antiques Centre has only been open a couple of months, it’s looking great and is packed full of interesting and quirky stuff from a number of dealers. It’s well run, and you’ll receive a warm welcome from Jan, who has launched the centre – or one of the other dealers on hand.
We’ve included these photos to show you how we’re getting on – and to showcase the kind of stock you’ll find on our pitch. In future posts, we’ll highlight other dealers and their wares.
Valley Antiques Centre is situated at the end of Valley Road – just past the Doctors’ Surgery, on the opposite side of the road. It’s open 10am-4pm, Monday to Sunday.
We hope that you can pay us a visit sometime soon!
You may have noticed that we’ve been a little quiet of late – that’s because we’ve moved house and business! After twenty happy years in Yorkshire, we’ve upped sticks from Todmorden and relocated to rural Wales. It seemed like a good time in life to have a bit of a shake up.
Having spent holidays here in Ceredigion, we came to thinking that we’d love to live here permanently. It’s been quite hard work – lots of sorting, packing and logistics, but we’re settled in now. We’re very happy to be in our little old cottage. It’s surrounded by woodland, rolling hills & lush river valleys… and a 15-minute drive from the Cardiganshire coast.
The house is full of character and interesting features. We’re going to give it a bit of sympathetic TLC – if you’re interested in following our renovation escapades, we’ve set up a dedicated Instagram account.
Today’s post is very photo orientated. We just thought that we’d share a few images of how our two ever-changing spaces are looking at the moment. We’ve had some quite serious illness in the family over the last few months – both human and canine – which really has required lots of our attention and time. We’ve managed to keep on top of the blog, but we’d be the first to admit that our internet shop has suffered a bit. We’ve relied on these ‘physical worlds’ for selling most of our stuff of late.
Our original pitch still has its vintage feel. In fact, one wall looks like an old grocery store at the moment with its brushes, soap, polish and old tins!
There’s a nice Ladderax unit to another wall. We actually had seven of these! We’ve kept one for our house and have sold five in a few weeks – this being the last one remaining. It’s not surprising, as they’re such a fabulous design. They look great with their simple, mid century modern styling – and are so flexible in terms of where you position the shelves and cupboards – they’re easy to erect or move too.
Elsewhere is the usual mix of furniture, crockery, artwork, fabric, lamps and so on.
We’ve had some interesting chairs this month such as this lovely 1960s wicker hanging model.
Also, this 1950s red leatherette tilt back armchair. We’ve not established the designer as yet, but it really does have the look of Ernest Race about it.
And how about this fabulous plastic weave chair in purple? It’s in great condition and the first time we’ve had one in this colourway.
In fact, there’s no shortage of eye-popping colour wherever you look at the moment!
Our second shop space across the road has a slightly different look. Traditional antiques rub shoulders with mid century modern. It’s a bit more edited and pieces are given a bit more space to breathe.
We love these much earlier pieces and have objects that date from the 16th to the 19th century. They have such character and history.
It’s not always easy mixing such divergent periods and styles, but we have a very eclectic mix in our own house – so a shop space offering the same range of items was irresistible. There’s only one thing left for the customer to do – decide what fits in their own home – and what works well together for them!
You’ll spy another one of those Ladderax units – a very dinky, cute little one this time (just sold). It’s currently displaying an assortment of lovely sculptural glass and the classic Cylinda Line tea set designed by Arme Jacobsen.
And just to prove that this place really does span eras, sitting against the same wall is an oak gate-leg table dating from about 1680. Vintage industrial storage rack and printing blocks atop. Also, a very sweet 18th century oak spoon rack on the wall – and a couple of framed silhouettes which we love. They look great against dark grey walls! The original vintage TWA travel poster dates from the 1960s and was designed by David Klein.
Here are a few more images so that you can have your own little virtual browse. Any questions, feel free to ask. And of course, if you’re ever near Todmorden – drop in!
…and fear not internet browsers – we’re back on the case now and will be photographing & listing some lovely postable items for the web shop this week.
In a recent blog post about a Blomus tea set, we mentioned our new shop space.
Well, here it is! It’s an attractive corner plot directly opposite the antiques centre from where we currently sell. This was a good opportunity to spread things out a bit. We’re sharing the shop with a couple of other dealers.
Our space has got a lovely, big display window.
…and a neglected window box which had potential to look very pretty.
So, what to do next! Mmmm… let’s mull this over.
We moved into the space over a couple of days. We wanted to combine our twin loves of mid century modern and rustic country styles.
And here are the results. We hope it looks like the kind of shop in which you’d like to browse. If you ever get the chance to visit, we’re right next to the library in Todmorden – at the junction of Hall Street and Rochdale Road. Picturehouse Antiques, where we also sell from, is directly across the road – and there are loads of good places to get coffee and cake close by!
Justin took lots of snaps which we’ve included below to give you a good feel of the new place. We hope to see you there one day!
To provide the best experiences, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behaviour or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent, may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional
Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes.The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.