FAMOUS for FURNITURE & INTERIORS SI NCE 1854
ARIGHI BIANCHI. THE HOME OF GREAT FURNITURE FOR OVER 160 YEARS. Arighi Bianchi has been part of the furniture in Britain, quite literally, for over 160 years. In fact, it’s fair to say that our store has become a great British institution, famous for its unique building, high-quality products, levels of service that belong to a gentler, more genteel era and family ownership that continues to this day. And we have our roots firmly planted in the North West. The North West of Italy, that is. Because this great British furnishing institution didn’t begin life in furnishing or in Britain, but in Italy and in silk. FOLLOWING THE SILK ROAD ALL THE WAY FROM ITALY. Like all good stories, that of Arighi Bianchi begins with hardship. Civil war was raging around the tiny Italian silk weaving town of Casnate, near Lake Como, way back in the early 1850’s.
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Like all good stories, that of Arig begins with hardship.
Civil war was raging around the tiny Ita town of Casnate, near Lake Como, way early 1850’s.
Life must have been tough and the details are obscure but one man decided to do something about it. Because Antonio Arighi set off from his home town, on foot, heading north with very little in the way of luggage beyond his passport papers, which still remain in the Arighi Bianchi archive to this day. The good thing was that he was leaving the civil war behind him. The bad thing was that he had the Alps in front of him.
Arighi Bianchi
ny Italian silk weaving , way back in the
But, undaunted, Antonio Arighi pressed on. We don’t know quite how he managed it but he seems to have crossed the mountains using the St.Gotthard Pass and something even more remarkable – a toboggan. And we don’t know what mishaps he had to endure en route but what we can be sure of is that, after a journey doubtless lasting many weeks, he arrived, footsore and saddle sore, in Macclesfield. WHY MACCLESFIELD? Because Macclesfield was in those days itself a poor town of silk weavers so, even though Antonio was in a foreign country, he must have felt himself to be in a community not dissimilar to the one he’d left. And with an in-built sense of adventure and entrepreneurialism, it was perhaps only natural for him to set up in business in the town selling the latest ‘necessities’ – barometers and clocks.
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Why Antonio Arighi suddenly developed a passion for selling barometers and clocks to farmers in the local area will probably always remain a mystery. The Industrial Revolution had changed manufacturing in Britain and perhaps he felt that his own craft skills simply couldn’t compete with the thundering machines that dominated the town. We can merely speculate that, hailing from the sunny climes of northern Italy, he was especially struck by the vagaries of the weather in Cheshire and Derbyshire. If ever a place needed barometers, it was here. No matter. Because nothing, but nothing, was about to deter a man who’d taken on the Alps and won.
“TRY BEFORE YOU BUY”, LONG BEFORE “TRY BEFORE YOU BUY”. So Antonio Arighi went on to start his own minirevolution in retailing. By inventing ‘Try Before You Buy’. As with every revolution, this particular one started with a thorny old problem: namely the hard-headed local farmers Antonio was trying to sell to. Because, however good the time his clocks kept and however beautiful the burnished mahogany cases of his barometers, these sons of the land simply didn’t want to know. So Antonio hit upon a cunning ruse. Upon pitching a barometer and receiving the customary brushoff, Antonio would ask the farmer to look after it until he was
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next back in the area, to save him having to carry it all the way back home. The farmer, perhaps even feeling a tiny pang of guilt, would take pity on him and agree to help. Then, on his return visit weeks later, Antonio would discover that the farmer had become so attached to the device that had proved more reliable than any number of red skies at night, that he was more than happy to part with his hard-earned cash. The rest, as they say, is history. ‘Try Before You Buy’ became, and remains to this day, highly popular with customers and Antonio never looked back. The business grew. And so did the range of goods he was supplying, as Antonio applied the skills he’d acquired selling barometers and clocks, first to picture framing, then to cupboards, cabinets and bookcases from new premises on Waters Green.
ARIGHI BECOMES ARIGHI BIANCHI. At this point, in 1868, just as Antonio Arighi’s business began to take off, Antonio Bianchi himself took off from Casnate and headed for Macclesfield to help him in the business. Antonio B had recently married Antonio A’s niece Teresa, but there was more than merely a family bond that drew Arighi to Bianchi.
Because Antonio Bianchi was to provide something that was of inestimable value to the business. He was a seasoned cabinet-maker himself. Very soon Arighi’s sharp business brain and Bianchi’s equally sharp saw produced a partnership made in cabinet making heaven with orders flowing in from such far-flung parts as the Potteries, Buxton and Manchester. And, amazingly, invoices from this early period still exist today. On the occasion of the store’s 155th anniversary in 2009, our nationwide search for the store’s oldest invoice produced an overwhelming response. (It seems that, in those days, our customers held on to our invoices as precious souvenirs or proof of provenance). Thus far, the oldest on record belongs to an order dated 1870 for a walnut cabinet, a pair of footstools and three vases. And it’s interesting to note that, even then, the store was prepared to offer discounts to its customers wherever it could. Because the invoice shows a reduction of eight shillings and sixpence on a price of seventeen pounds eight and six!
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In June of 1872, with orders flooding in from far and wide, something rather less welcome flooded into the firm’s ‘island’ premises in Waters Green, as the nearby River Bollin burst its banks. MR ARIGHI HELPS SAVE THE DAY The river water rose to a depth of three feet in the lower room, which was stocked with precision turned timber and fine veneers. Planks of wood floated out into the street and mattresses were ruined. While a horse in the stables almost drowned but somehow managed to fight its way free. But, if the flood waters threatened the business with a minor disaster, they also threatened a major one for the town. All along the banks of the river, the town’s commercial hub, factories and private dwellings were flooded, beer on stillage at the nearby Cross Keys pub was ruined and, as the waters continued to rise higher for two successive nights, the flood, and the panic it instilled in the populace, spread further and further afield. However, Antonio Arighi hadn’t fought his way out of a civil war and across Europe’s most daunting mountain range to be defeated by a flood. With the help this time, not of a sledge, but a sledgehammer, he and other brave souls, proceeded to tear down the hoarding protecting the sides of the Buxton Road bridge, releasing the flood water and allowing the river to flow away. So we like to think that, of all the savings we’ve made for our customers over the years, one very significant saving we made still stands out to this day!
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FURNISHING HIGH-SOCIETY WITH ALL ITS NEEDS. As the business grew from its small first shop in Macclesfield, so did its reputation with local high-society. An order dated 1880 from the Lord Mayor of Macclesfield shows that he was wallpapering and re-furnishing both his own home and the Mayor’s Parlour at the Town Hall, for which he purchased 25 yards of tapestry carpet, mahogany chairs with hair seats, a dining table, a swing glass, a ‘best’ fender with steel fire irons and a skin hearth rug. In 1884 the Registrar’s Office and County Court bought office chairs and cushions. Macclesfield Infirmary bought brass bedsteads with engraved nameplates. While the Captain and Sergeant of the Militia Barracks were also regular customers. Hadfield the Chemist bought a writing desk, dining table, pair of easy chairs, cane rocker, table, towel rail and nine-piece leather suite (the three-piece suite clearly being insufficient for some middle-class Victorian needs!). And, perhaps most intriguing of all, are orders for a regular supply of Pembroke tables to Bullocks the Photographers in Backwallgate. One thought being that its customers appeared to like the table they were photographed with so much that they would invariably insist on buying it!
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Having helped to save the Cross Keys ‘island’ site from the flood of 1872, in the very same year Arighi and Bianchi came up against something they were powerless to resist. The inexorable tide of progress. OUR VERY OWN CRYSTAL PALACE. The site was the subject of a compulsory purchase order as part of the road-widening scheme for the railway station approach. The buildings were demolished and the firm forced to re-locate to Mill Lane in nearby Sutton where it remained for the next ten years. But business was growing apace as an old photograph of the row of cottages it occupied there at the time appears to illustrate. Antonio Bianchi sits holding the reins of the company’s delivery cart with Arighi standing beside it in his trademark white apron and hard hat. And, significantly, many chests of drawers are lined up on the pavement ready for delivery. Clearly, the new company of Arighi Bianchi was fast outgrowing its premises. Which is why, in 1883, the two partners moved into the rather more spacious accommodation of the store’s current building, the old Silk Mill, on what was then Commercial Road. But even then there was something missing. The old mill’s industrial atmosphere lacked the style and panache that customers had come to expect. So, inspired by Joseph Paxton’s famous Crystal Palace built for the 1851 Great Exhibition in nearby Sutton where it remained for the next ten years. London, the two Antonios briefed a local builder, George Roylance, to renovate the premises and construct a new four-storey building to complement the existing structure, with an iconic façade featuring large Italianate plate glass windows in ornamental arched cast iron frames.
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The cost of altering the existing structure came in at £32.15s., while the cost of building the new showroom and façade amounted to £212.10s. a significant sum for the time. But suffice to say it was worth it: the new store was a sensation when it opened for business in 1892. In particular, the stunning new façade became a local icon that stands to this day and a great talking point for passengers on the nearby railway. Because Arighi Bianchi’s great exhibition of furniture had acquired a flavour of the Great Exhibition itself.
AN INVENTIVE INVENTORY. To celebrate the new store’s grand opening, the Macclesfield Courier and Herald gave away a four-page supplement showcasing the goods on offer. This supplement provides us with a remarkable insight into the furnishing prerequisites of a smart Victorian home. And here, amongst the typical sideboards, overmantels and beds, the antimaca sars and the umbrella stands of the period, we find some remarkable evidence of the store’s pioneering spirit. Then, as now, the store was renowned for promoting and championing exciting new ideas and furnishing trends. So, for example, we find the ‘latest novelty’, a Secretaire of American invention ‘which by simply pulling the cover down locks the whole of the drawers automatically’. And, in addition to the usual plain browns, a revolutionary new inlaid linoleum ‘with an imperishable pattern’! Exotic woods, such as American walnut and canary wood, were to be found in abundance. While Arighi and Bianchi’s cosmopolitan world view and roving eye were responsible for bringing to the store the very best that ‘the Continent’ had to offer, from Italian and ‘Parisian’ bedsteads to Brussels tapestries and Genoa velvets, along with all manner of exotica from the Orient.
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Next to arrive on the scene at the turn of the century was Francis Arighi, nephew of Antonio and brother of Teresa. After a spell in Chicago selling oysters and fruit from a barrow, Frank, as he was affectionately known, soon became a partner in the firm, which in 1900, was established as a Limited Company. To this day, Arighi Bianchi is the oldest limited company still trading in its original format. After many years of depending on horses for transportation, Arighi Bianchi’s innovative spirit also saw the store operating the first motorised commercial vehicle in Macclesfield, a real eye-opener in a world of horse-drawn vans. And a particularly poignant photograph still survives of the vehicle’s very first driver, Edward Connolly, who was sadly to die at the Battle of the Somme in 1917.
MOTORING AHEAD WITH BUSINESS. But motorised delivery wasn’t the company’s only innovative means of driving business. It also pioneered ‘mail-order’, with its promise that ‘Every attention is devoted to letter orders’, underlining its undertaking to deal with orders by mail on the very day they were received. Not only that, but this was to be a store for all, quaintly promoting ‘Goods for all classes’ with the second floor offering cheaper bedroom suites for servants’ rooms and the ‘artisan’ class. While, finally, the two Antonios themselves both changed their names to Anthony’ to signify that they really were now here to stay in their adopted homeland. And very soon they’d both be taking orders, quite literally, from royalty itself.
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FURNITURE FIT FOR A KING Word about the two Antonios’ remarkable emporium spread far and wide until it even reached the ears of royalty. In fact, when Edward the Seventh was still Prince of Wales, the store received a number of orders from Marlborough House and Sandringham. And some of the receipts for these goods still reside in the company’s archives. One of these orders is from Princess Alexandra, for a pair of carved oak candlesticks. She obviously liked what she saw because, a few years later, on becoming Queen, she ordered another two pairs.
IMPORTING FROM ALL OVER EUROPE, EXPORTING TO ALL OVER BRITAIN. In between the wars, Antonio Bianchi’s eldest son, Enrico, brought a whole new dimension to the store by importing wonderful fabrics, including tapestries, damasks, cretonnes, lace and velvets, from all over continental Europe. Not only that, Enrico went even further by creating and printing his own designs. And, as the company’s import business grew, so did its exports to the four corners of the country and beyond. While its wholesale fabric division became so successful that it completely overshadowed the furniture side of the business, which was kept going through the passion of Enrico’s youngest brother, John Ernest.
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Unfortunately, the outbreak of the second World War put paid to the company’s wholesale fabric division with the business being finally sunk, quite literally, when a torpedo destroyed one final consignment in the South Atlantic on a ship bound for South America. After the war, in common with the rest of the world, Arighi Bianchi struggled to pick up the pieces. But, in the fine tradition of their father, Enrico and John Ernest set about restoring the company’s prosperity. They leased the Commercial Road premises, which had lost its passing trade, to WK Lowe Knitwear and opened a new shop on Chestergate, in Macclesfield town centre. With Enrico’s death in 1956, ‘Mr. John’, as he came to be known, became chairman, a role he continued to perform until his death in 1992, aged 96. Upon taking over the running of the business, ‘Mr. John’s’ sons, Anthony and Paul, secured an injection of capital for the business and initiated a programme of refurbishment that would include a new rear entrance and a lift. And, with the increasing availability of merchandise, the store finally emerged from the austerity of the immediate post-war years and embarked upon a period of growth and prosperity.
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RELIEF FROM THE RELIEF ROAD. A LANDMARK DECISION. In 1970, plans for the long-mooted North-South Macclesfield ring-road were finally approved. This would have been all very well except it meant, once again, that a compulsory purchase order was served on the company, which was instructed to find new premises. Anthony and Paul Bianchi, ‘Mr John’s’ two sons and nephews of Enrico, were now running the business, and they took up the fight to save the building with its famous façade. Fortunately, they weren’t alone. One of the great defenders of Britain’s architectural heritage, the celebrated poet Sir John Betjeman, joined them in the struggle, as did The Architectural Review, The Victorian Society and hundreds of local people who signed a petition protesting against the plans. And, in this instance, we’re glad to say, people-power won the day and the building at last received the official recognition it deserved, along with a ‘Grade 2*’ listing. It was a landmark decision. Which meant the company could return to its original home and breathe a sigh of relief.
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In over 160 years in business, we believe there is one thing that holds the key to our success. The family has always stayed firm. And the firm has always stayed family.
L-R; Rob, Nick & Richard Bianchi. Not shown; John & Sarah Bianchi.
Arighi Bianchi is a fourth-generation family-owned business. Today, the immediate descendants of Antonio Bianchi hold the reins at the store. What this means is that the principles, ethics and standards first established by both Antonios in the mid-nineteenth century are still adhered to even today.
KEEPING THE FAMILY FIRM. And, just as our fine old building has seen several generations of Bianchis at the helm, so too has it seen successive generations of our customers’ families come through the door. It is this sense of continuity, and community, that we believe makes Arighi Bianchi not just special but unique in today’s world, in the bond we forge with our customers, not just as customers, but as friends. We intend to maintain this tradition into this, our third century in business, and beyond. And it’s our firm belief that we will. This original leaded window was re-homed after being spotted in the front window of an antique shop in Montreal, Canada, by an Arighi Bianchi customer.
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One of the great things about being able to look back on over 160 years of history is the ability to retain those things from the past that really are worth retaining. WRAPPING UP THE PRESENT IN THE PAST. And, no, we don’t mean horse-drawn vans or furniture for servants and ‘artisans’. Or even linoleum ‘with an imperishable pattern’! But principally the one thing the Victorian era is justly famous for. Service. That’s why here you’ll find choice in depth and breadth, and all the latest trends in home furnishing, combined with levels of service and expertise that really do derive from a previous age. For example, ‘Try Before You Buy’ is a service that our customers still enjoy to this day. Except that, today, it’s no longer a means of persuading sceptical farmers to part with their hard-earned cash, but a way of ensuring that our customers are happy with their purchase. That it actually ‘fits the bill’ before they pay it, in fact. We also still offer a pre-delivery inspection service to make sure, for example, that the four-poster bed that looked so stunning in the showroom will actually fit in your bedroom. When we deliver, we won’t just leave your furniture on the doorstep for you to manhandle. Instead, we’ll assemble and position it, in the room you want it in, and remove and dispose of all packing. And, if you wish, remove your old furniture and donate it to charity for re-use. When you buy a new bed from us, we take responsibility for your old bed too, removing and disposing of it in the most environmentally-friendly way possible. But that’s not all. Because at Arighi Bianchi we believe that today the term ‘shop assistant’ has become something of a misnomer. Shop almost anywhere on the High Street or retail park and you’ll get precious little assistance at all.
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FAMOUS BRANDS UNDER ONE VERY FAMOUS ROOF. Here, however, things are different, even a little old fashioned, in the best possible sense, of course. So don’t expect plus fours and tailcoats, but do expect experience, expertise and a wealth of knowledge, qualities that have become something of an anachronism in this day and age. This doesn’t just apply to those staff members who’ve been with us for decades, but to our younger staff too. For us, of course, they’re the future. But we also like to make sure that even they keep one foot firmly planted in the past.
Of course, when all’s said and done, it’s not the store’s wonderful iconic façade that’s the most important thing about Arighi Bianchi. It’s what lies behind it. And here again the present owes a great deal to the legacy of the past. Because, with 160 years or more of scouring the globe for the best in furnishing design, we know precisely where to look to find the best quality and value. Today this wealth of experience and know-how has enabled us to source and offer our customers famous brand names throughout every department of the store. All brought together, under one roof, by the equally famous brand that is Arighi Bianchi.
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OUR GOOD TASTE EXTENDS TO FOOD. It’s fair to say that, with the opening of Café Bar Arighi, we’ve become almost as famous for feeding our customers with delicious freshly prepared food as we are for feeding them with fresh furnishing ideas. And, in keeping with everything at Arighi Bianchi, every dish is a perfect example of good taste. Café Bar Arighi offers an exciting menu of stylish and imaginative dishes, for a satisfying lunch or a light snack, from hearty fresh soups to perfect melt-in-the-mouth paninis and from delicious pasta dishes to fish and chips with a twist.
We make our own scrumptious cakes and scones in our very own bakery. Our wine list puts the emphasis on zesty whites and full-bodied reds from Italy. Our Italian origins also serve us well in serving up what we believe to be the best espresso this side of the Mont Blanc tunnel!
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While the ambience of CafÊ Bar Arighi, much like the food, is light, elegant and sophisticated, making it the perfect spot to meet with friends, take a re-energising pit-stop or mull over prospective purchases at your leisure. And perhaps, even to reflect for a moment, on a great furnishing destination (the destination for inspiration, as we like to say), its colourful and eventful past and its stylish, exciting present. Because, having been round the houses and the warehouses, and the furniture floors of department stores, once you’ve arrived here you too might feel that, at last, you really and truly have arrived. Just as Antonio Arighi and Antonio Bianchi did all those years ago.
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w w w. arighibianchi.co.uk Arighi Bianchi, The Silk Road, Macclesfield, Cheshire, SK10 1LH | 01625 613333 Opening Times: Monday to Saturday 9.30am – 5.30pm, Sunday 11.30am – 5pm
UPHOLSTERY
DINING
OCCASIONAL
ACCESSORIES
BEDS
BEDROOM
MEASURING & FITTING SERVICES
FLOORCOVERINGS CAFE BAR
FABRICS