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A E Batchelor Ltd, Saddlers

July 27, 2018
by the gentle author

Contributing Photographer Patricia Niven & I took the train down to Epping to meet Anthony Batchelor and his dad John who work together as the third and fourth generation in their family saddlery business. Anthony picked us up from the station and drove us through the town, past the former shoe shop and saddlery established by his great-grandfather in an old weatherboarded house in 1919.

Since 2005, high street premises have no longer been required by A E Batchelor Ltd. Anthony drove us through the winding lanes until we turned into the yard behind an imposing Georgian farmhouse, where he and his father operate today from a comfortable and quiet workshop in a converted barn. Such is their reputation that, even without a website, Anthony and his father find they have as much work as they can handle simply by word of mouth.

While John stays in the workshop at his bench, Anthony sets out on the road driving seven hundred miles a day to visit customers across East Anglia, from the daughters of wealthy businessmen in Southend up to old hunting families in Norfolk. I was assured that, given their different preferences in music and choice of radio channels, such a division of responsibility suits father and son very well.

“In 1919, my great-grandfather Alfred Edward Batchelor returned from the West Indies where he had a sugar plantation,” Anthony explained to me,”he worked for Freeman Hardy and Willis in Croydon and then he bought a shoe shop in Epping.” In the thirties, the family purchased the saddlery next door and ran both shops until 2005.“He always called himself the reluctant saddler,” admitted Anthony, referring to his grandfather Alfred Robert,“so he went and worked at Blisses.”

Bliss & Co of Sun St, behind Liverpool St Station, were the last of the many saddlers that once existed in the vicinity of Bishopsgate, originally serving the needs of travellers in the days before the coming of the railway. Thus Alfred Robert and then his son Alfred John both trained at Blisses, which – astonishingly – only closed in the eighties and today its handsome red brick building, custom-built as a saddlers, still stands in Sun St unfortunately awaiting imminent demolition.

“We still use my grandfather’s tools,” Anthony revealed, lifting and brandishing up a half-moon shaped knife which his father had just employed,“he ‘liberated’ this knife from an abandoned saddlery when he went into occupied France at the end of World War II.”

Neither father nor son have any regrets about abandoning the retail side of the business in Epping.“When we had the shop we were there all hours, it was a hard life,” confided John,“now I can take a day off whenever I please.” I watched John as he stitched a simple dog lead with painstaking care. “The work we do is rustic in style,” he informed me modestly, almost apologetically, confessing that his primary concern was to create items which serve their purpose at a reasonable price. Yet, to my eyes, John’s expert stitching and years of experience conspired to produce a distinctive object of subtle beauty in which the form fitted the function perfectly.

The shoe shop in Epping High St opened by Alfred Edward Bachelor in 1919 with the saddlers next door

Alfred John Batchelor

In the saddlery in Epping in the sixties

Alfred John Batchelor with his father Alfred Robert

John at his work bench

Sewing a dog lead with the traditional saddlers’ double stitch

Bob Cuthbert repairing harnesses at A E Batchelor in the sixties

The knife ‘liberated’ by Alfred Robert Batchelor in World War II and still in use

Anthony shows the card templates used to ensure saddles fit the horse’s back

A Sciver – a machine for splitting leather straps

Catalogue for Bliss of Sun St, beside Liverpool St Station

Photographs copyright © Patricia Niven

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4 Responses leave one →
  1. July 27, 2018

    I was taken to Batchelor’s on my 10th birthday in 1968, to get kitted out in a hard hat and riding gear. My birthday present was riding lessons at Crystalbrook Stables in Theydon Bois. From then on, the smell of leather and polish takes me back to that exciting day, and my parents always used to pause and go into Batchelors when we walked down Epping High Street on a Saturday to do our shopping. Lovely to read this!

  2. Mary Moulder permalink
    July 29, 2018

    What a delight to see the commercial Singer Sewing Machine! I spent my elementary school years in South Bend, Indiana. Besides the Studebaker Auto Plant, the Singer Sewing Machine Plant was part of industrial South Bend. Who knew that photos from Spitalfields, England would ignite memories of my childhood in Indiana.

  3. Helen Donovan permalink
    August 11, 2018

    Oh what a delight this is!

    I used to travel on the Green Line bus from Harlow to Epping with my Mum to go shopping and I would always make a beeline for Batchelors shop. I was a horse mad little girl and the smell of the shop was heavenly. Walking around the shop and touching the tack, I would have dreams of owning my own pony some day.

    I got my first riding hat from Batchelors and the thrill upon walking out of the shop with my new hat was amazing. No more borrowing riding kit from other people!

    I learnt to ride at Netteswellbury Rding School in Harlow and also helped out there at weekends. I do recall some of their tack came from Batchelors.

    It is so good to know that the brand is still going, even of the shop is no longer there. It was so well known in the locality. Every horse mad little girl knew about Batchelors!

  4. Janet Harris permalink
    June 13, 2020

    So nice reading this and the comments. I went to live in Harlow in 1971 with my parents . I used to go to Epping specifically for Batchelors . Firstly because I had a horse ( for a short time) at Nettlesbury , we lived in Little Brays , a quick cycle away. Secondly after a couple of years I was working in London and and used to catch the tube to Theydon Bois and walk up to Little Gregories to lessons in the lovely indoor school with Miss Cowie. Usually on Lovely little bay called Flash Harry, he was wonderful , or skewbald called Witchery. Sometimes on Sunday’s too. My daughter has horses , she often uses Antony to check the horses backs and saddles .

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