COUNTY CONNECTIONS
An eclectic high street legacy
Harrison & Simmonds has been in the Simmonds family for five generations, offering traditional, personal and friendly service since 1928. An emporium of high-quality gifts, and with more than 1,000 products available, the business is a
unique treasure - a reminder of congenial service and attention to detail at its best - which traverses the void between the high street of yesteryear and the almost faceless experience of twenty-first century internet with dexterity and grace.
PHOTO STORY: Third generation, Matthew Simmonds, outside the family business which has been a landmark in Bedford’s high street for 90 years. Photo: Courtesy of Jane Andrews - Manners PR
I
t was in the year 1900, at the turn of the century, that Nathaniel Harrison Simmonds, son of Nathaniel Simmonds - bookseller, map and
print specialist in High Street, Salisbury - was born into the world at Mitre House under the shadow of the spire of that great and sumptuous cathedral which boasts the highest spire in England.
Following his father’s sudden death in 1906, Nathaniel
was fortunate to be adopted by his uncle and aunt, Ernest and Emily Harrison. In 1928, Ernest, poor in health and modest in wealth, joined in partnership with his nephew, Nathaniel, to purchase the business of Covingtons Tobacco Specialists, which had been established as the County’s tobacconists, in the high street of the busy market town of Bedford, back in the nineteenth century. The previous owner taught Ernest and Nathaniel the trade and the rest, as they say, is history. Ernest, who had supplied the funds to purchase
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Covingtons, left Nathaniel to enjoy the freedom of developing the business as he saw fit. Both partners, having had many years’ experience in the jewellery trade, naturally had an eye for quality and prestige and so Nathaniel set about building a warm, happy and intimate relationship with his customers; laying the foundations of what today truly remains a family business. The business passed, initially, to two of his sons, Michael and David and then to three of his grandchildren, Matthew, Dominic and Christiane, who remain deeply involved and have celebrated the 90th anniversary of this high street gem, which, since 1928, has traded as Harrison & Simmonds. In 1933, a new double-fronted shop front was fitted at a
cost of £205-16s-6d. Tragically, the same year the same year Ernest died and Nathaniel managed the shop for Ernest’s widow until she died in 1961, when he inherited the business. The business continued to establish itself then, at the outset of World War II, Nathaniel tried to enlist for military service but was turned down because of a heart
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