One shop in Dagenham, and a trade worth learning
Forty-seven years of resoling, re-heeling and telling people the truth about their shoes.
How we got here
A shop in Dagenham
Russell, David and Andrew buy a shoe repair shop in Dagenham. Andrew and David run it between them, offering shoe repair alongside key cutting — the pairing the business is still built on.
Six shops
By the mid-eighties there are more than six shops trading, all of them chosen for footfall rather than rent.
Canary Wharf
A branch opens at Canary Wharf. Commuters who leave at seven and return at eight need a shop that is open at both ends of the day, which is why our busiest counter still opens at 7am.
Watches, jewellery and engraving
Engraving and watch and jewellery repair are added — complementary trades that suit the same benches, the same customers and the same standard of finish.
Dry cleaning
The business expands into dry cleaning through a sister company trading as City of London Dry Cleaners, so a customer can leave a suit and a pair of shoes at the same counter.
Part of the Timpson group
Founded as a family business and now part of the Timpson group of companies. Same shops, same benches, same people behind the counter.
Where we put our shops
Our growth strategy has never been complicated: high-footfall sites on the main London commuter corridors, where somebody can drop a pair off on the way to work and pick them up on the way home. A repair shop that is a special journey is a repair shop people stop using.
The same logic applies to what we stock. Our materials come from traditional, largely family-run suppliers — the ones who still make a leather sole that lasts and will talk to you about why. It costs more per pair. It is the difference between a repair and a delay.
What has not changed
The person who quotes your job does the job. If a shoe is not worth repairing, you get told at the counter, for nothing, rather than sold a repair that fails in a month. And nothing goes above the quoted price without a phone call first.
Those three things are the whole business. Everything else — the estimator, the tracking, the shop — is just making them easier to reach.
Come and see the benches
Every shop has someone who has been doing this for decades. Ask them anything.