Lloyd George was prime minister when the first of the Harper Family set up shop with his nephew in a small arch lock up in Walcot Street opposite the corn market where the YMCA now stands.

In a strange twist of fate Francis Harpers nephew died suddenly leaving Francis with a new business and no workforce. He immediately pressed his son Arthur into work despite his tender age of 13. They worked together for many years upholstering and reupholstering furniture and mattresses until Arthur took over the business and moved the workshops to Harrington Place in the centre of Bath. During the second world war we were frantically making blackout blinds for all of the newly commandeered Royal Navy buildings and camps in and around bath literally laying miles of flooring and hanging blackout fabrics to thousands of windows.

After the second world war the business had grown to such an extent that we needed a new home. We moved to Sutcliffe House in 1947 taking over the premises previously occupied by the Sutcliffe Boys School. In this period we predominantly provided labour and fitters for most of the other furnishing businesses employing over 50 people in the carpet upholstery and blind workshops.

All of this work certainly took its toll and an exhausted Arthur soon handed over the reigns to Roy and Frank his two sons. They continued in the same vein and even added the odd sideline one of the more obscure was delivering Kia-Ora orange juice to cinemas all over the South of England. It was in the 1960's that Roy realised we could actually set up a showroom and deal directly with the customers we had served over the decades.

This customer oriented approach served us well and the business grew further as Bath expanded rapidly with the development of housing in Minster Way and Fairfield Park sprouting monthly! In the early 80's Frank Harper decided he wanted to take a back seat and that led to Neil (your author and Roy's son) joining the company in 1985.

The following 20 years saw further growth and transformation reflecting the changes in style and fashion and we worked for many well established Bath families and businesses including the Longleat Estate, the Royal Crescent Hotel amongst others. Roy then handed over the reigns in 1996.

In 2002 we could see that traditional retailing was being shaken to its core by new technologies and global imports and we needed to specialise. The large rambling premises were no longer fit for purpose so we decided to get development permission to convert the old showrooms to residential accommodation. Three years later we eventually gained permission and sold the premises to a local developer, who has sympathetically converted the existing building to flats and townhouses. Crystallising decades of hard work and professional service.

It would have been a shame to hang up our coats at that point as the knowledge experience and relationships gained and created over the decades would have withered away. So we set up a new streamlined business taking advantage of modern information technology. We now operate from a warehouse and single office and although we don't have a showroom we have distilled our product range to those that we believe offer great value for money without compromising quality. In our current lean form we are able to compete and prosper in these challenging times.