The World of Interiors
Since the printing of this article in World of Interiors , I & JL Brown have expanded their business even further moving to a purpose built 52,000 square foot premises with an even larger showroom. The workforce has also expanded to nearly 80 people.
Ian Brown might not be everyone's idea of a typical antique dealer. Not for him quaint bay-windowed shop-front in a country town: his shop-cum-warehouse in Hereford has a loading bay, a fork lift truck, 44,000 square feet of space, and a work force of almost fifty (including a sales director).
'We are business people in the antique trade,' he proclaims. His buying trips to France are awesomely well-orchestrated affairs. He travels between appointments in a chauffeur-driven Rolls Royce and dealers prepare for the imminent arrival of 'Monsieur Brun' by setting aside stock that they think might interest him. The hopeful chairs, tables and armoires stand lined up with their prices scribbled on them in chalk for easy reading.
'Oui, oui, oui, non, non, oui,' he says, striding down the lines like a French casting director in a tearing hurry. The chosen few are identified with stickers. Within days they are packed up and collected by a specially chartered pantenchnicon that follows in Brown's wake. 'It's hard work,' he says.
'Sometimes we cover 2000 miles in five days. We're up and out before the concierge is awake.' By the sound of his voice it is hard work that he relishes.
Ian Brown came late to the antique trade. Seventeen years ago he was still teaching rural studies at a Hereford school. 'I suppose I just got bored,' he says. From rural studies he turned to dealing in country furniture - a logical progression of sorts. He started as runner supplemented with a bit of market gardening on the side. He combed the provinces in search of pieces that he then peddled to dealers from the boot of his Ford Consul. The business escalated and soon he and his wife opened premises of their own. When they eventually extended their operations to include antique French country furniture (of which they are now Britain's biggest importer) the business spilled over into an enormous Victorian edifice on Commercial Road.
The ground floor has become the showroom where simple Welsh dressers rub shoulders with grand armoires, dining tables with high-backed chairs. 'They're my pet subject,' Brown confides. At any one time he has around 4000 antique country chairs in stock - enormous precarious piles of them in dark, dusty, barn-like rooms. Chairs with gruff appealing names like Billings and Wigan jostle with Windsors and Wheelbacks, and words like 'spindle' and 'ladderback' pepper Brown's conversation. 'You can sometimes trace a chair back to a specific village or even one particular maker just by its design. I can even show you the exact house where the Macclesfield was made,' he says. 'People don't realise that in country areas people were generally not rich enough to buy a whole set of chairs. A couple might get a pair as a wedding present then another when granny cane to live with them and so on.'
Country chairs mimicked grander styles - 'Country Chippendale', for instance. These had rush seats rather than upholstery and were made from fruitwoods rather than mahogany. 'They were favoured by the Yeoman farmer made good.'
Chairs were also very much an expression of wealth. ' The Liverpool chair was the product of a rich town that thrived on slaves and shipping so it was made suitably large and sturdy,' he says. 'On the other end of the scale Welsh chairs were tiny.'
The chairs that the company produces tend to be larger than antique ones since, as Ian Brown points out, '20th Century man is much broader in the beam than his 18th Century predecessor.' For their designs they plagiarise the best elements of the antiques that they handle. 'Seventeen years of dealing in country chairs puts one in a good position to copy them,' says Brown. In fact, so enamoured is Ian Brown with the concept that he has recently built himself a brand new 17th Century style manor house, complete with double-glazed mullions.
