75 Years of Thorpes #3 - Part of the community

In our last blog we covered a period of rapid growth at Thorpes, with changes in direction, product and staffing revolutionising our company.

Now heading into the early 70s, we were presented with the opportunity to demonstrate that despite a number of changes, the company remained the same at heart, with community and flexibility a key priority.

Maintaining Principles

By now, JT Thorpe and Sons had grown into a nationally recognised name, supplying bespoke joinery to education authorities across the length and breadth of the country, but this did not stop requests coming from the local area.

Indeed after 16 years in Great Glen, JT Thorpe and Sons had become synonymous with the village, with a number of staff from nearby and a reputation that was well established.

But, with an order book often coming dangerously close to exceeding capacity, it would be understandable if smaller, more community centric quotes took a back seat in favour of those to drive growth for the business.

However this was never likely to be the case for founder Jack and his son (and now Managing Director) John, who ensured that the tenets that their company were built on, remained prevalent.

Meet Les

Before we get on to the product, it’s time to reintroduce a bona fide Thorpes legend: Les Walter.

Les joined JT Thorpe and Sons in 1972 as an apprentice, working and learning under both Jack and John Thorpe as well as the wider team.

Starting as an assistant on sites aiding the installation of joinery to schools, colleges and education labs before moving into the factory, Les has considerable experience of all facets of joinery production, which he now uses as the go-to man in the Thorpes Joinery workshop for any out the ordinary, or particularly tricky joinery conundrums.

You may remember one remarkable example of Les’ incredible ingenuity in creating completely bespoke tools in order to fabricate hand-spun copper rods for Ninety-One’s London headquarters, if not it is well worth a read here!

Great Glen Church

One of Les’ first projects at the tender age of 16, was assisting Edgar Sutton in the spray shop with a special request from the local church to create new pews.

Made from solid aformosia timber with “linenfold” panels to their ends, Thorpes supplied the church with these bespoke made pews.

50 years later, they can still be found in St Cuthbert’s Church, continuing as a perfect metaphor for our company: quality, time proven, community focussed with a richer backstory than initially meets the eye.