Driscolls Antiques – a Different Approach
A LAPADA member on a trading estate? The new way of trading in quality antiques.
Driscolls Antiques is located on a large recently built trading and industrial estate near Clitheroe in East Lancashire. Passing trade isn’t guaranteed – the road on which the estate is located is one of several that connect Clitheroe with the A59 trunk road. Some visitors arrive via the nearby Clitheroe Auction Mart, useful, but hardly Kensington Church Street traffic for a LAPADA member. What’s going on?
Brief history
Driscolls Antiques, now almost entirely furniture and internet based, it was started around thirty years ago in Todmorden – a small Yorkshire market town on the Lancashire border. James Driscoll took over his family’s business in the late Nineties. James, a furniture restorer and French polisher by trade, soon took the ambitious view that it was possible to focus on higher-end antique furniture while increasing turnover at the same time. Both quality and quantity, rather than one or the other.
James identified the four key factors as being greater show space and exposure, lower overheads and Internet trading. So in 2002 he took a unit on an industrial estate in nearby Hebden Bridge and went online. Another milestone was passed in 2004 when Driscolls joined LAPADA, the prestigious art and antiques dealers’ association. That was the third of four key factors – but what about turnover?
Today
Driscolls’ success has been their ability to do what so many other dealers have done with smaller antiques and collectibles, but few with furniture. By 2007 turnover had increased to such an extent that Driscolls took on a 6500 square feet unit in Clitheroe. Apart from the vast display area, it gives them space for a small photographic studio area, shipment consolidation, a workshop and storage. Time and money is saved by employing four restorers on-site and in-house. Driscolls takes responsibility for its own deliveries anywhere in the U.K to ensure goods arrive safely and are assembled onsite.
Internet-generated enquiries and sales remain strong. Customers in the know are prepared to make quite a journey to LAPADA members. So the absence of a Kensington, Chester or Harrogate shop front is balanced by lower overheads, on-site resources and sheer volume of displays. All of the stock is displayed online, with prices and a money back guarantee is in place for direct orders over the internet
If you do decide to view items at there antique furniture warehouse you will see a large array of antique tables , antiques chairs , antique bookcases and antique wardrobes all of very good quality and beautifully restored.
Driscolls Antiques is still a family business, with his wife (Rebecca) and mother-in-law Barbara (Heywood) doing much of the admin while father-in-law Michael is one of the four in-house restorers. You can visit them in person at Unit 2, Deanfield Way, Link 59 Business Park, Clitheroe BB7 1QU (Mon-Sat 10-5).. Their regularly updated website, with all prices online, is www.driscollsantiques.co.uk and their telephone number 0845 241 5515.
