Upholstery firm KL Uphill in New Milton to close next month

AN UPHOLSTERY business in New Milton is set to wrap up next month after more than 90 years of trade.

Peter Clatworthy, who owns KL Uphill on Parkside Walk, off Station Road, said the time is right for him to hang up his pinking shears and retire to spend more time with family.

Peter took over the business in 1991 from his father Colin and his co-workers, who had bought out the original owners in the 1960s.

“I’m semi-retiring,” Peter told the A&T. “I will still honour product guarantees and do maintenance work over the next five or so years.

“The most important thing is loyalty to my customers. so I’m ramping down to retirement rather than having a strict cut-off date.

“I have a workshop at home, but of course it’s not as big as the store.”

He added: “There are a few reasons I’m retiring now. I’ve always enjoyed this work and, by doing something I love, I’ve never considered it to be work.

“I always felt very lucky that someone would pay me to do it, but now seemed to be a natural time to retire.

“I’ll be able to spend more time playing golf and more time with my family.”

KL Uphill was founded by cabinet maker Ken Uphill and his wife in 1931, running from the former Midland Bank building on Old Milton Road. The business closed during the Second World War and reopened afterwards.

Peter’s father Colin joined the company in the 1960s and later bought out the business with other senior members of staff. After leaving school in 1980, Peter began an apprenticeship with the firm as an upholsterer.

The original home of the business on Old Milton Road was gutted by a fire in 1988 before it moved to its current premises. Peter took over the business in 1991, although some of his customers have been using the firm since the 1930s.

“Most of my business, around 60-70% of it, is from repeat customers,” Peter said. “Most of them have joked, ‘You can’t retire yet, I still need to finish my kitchen’, but then you get the genuine reaction that they are very happy to see you retire.

“I have at least one customer in her 90s who has been coming to us since Mr and Mrs Uphill owned the business.”

Peter said some of his more unusual jobs over the years included covering a set of dining room chairs with individual animal prints and reupholstering pew seats in Forest churches.

“There’s more upholstery and upcycling of older furniture going on these days, and it’s more ecologically driven,” Peter said.

“For my father’s generation, it was more economically driven; people would buy furniture they knew they would have for the rest of their lives, like a three-piece suite that would be recovered three to five times during its lifespan.

“After the 1980s, with mass production and more imports of cheap furniture, everything became more disposable.

“Now we’ve gone full circle again, with people wanting their older, better quality furniture renewed.

“I remember in the 1990s finding really good quality Ercol furniture at a landfill. It’s the sort of thing you want to take home with you and work on but I had no where to store it.”

The business’s last day will be 27th July.