On the Fairacres Retail Park there has been a revamp of the Lee Longlands store. They are marking the merger of their Vineys and Lee Longlands, Abingdon showrooms, and the Mayor of Abingdon was there to cut the ribbon. The Vineys showroom closed as part of the Fairacres phase 2 development.
Lee Longlands took over Vineys in 2002. Both businesses have been established well over 100 years. Lee Longlands was established in 1902 in Birmingham, and Vineys was established in the 1870s in Abingdon.
The store merger sees both Lee Longlands and Vineys styles of furniture in different areas of the store.
Vineys have had a number of different premises in Abingdon, selling drapery and furniture. This picture shows a shop in High Street. Mays and Vineys set up a consortium and established the Fairacres Retail Park around 1973.
How kind of the mayor to support wasteful consumerism.
It’s a shame he can’t bring himself to live up to his own Climate Emergency Statements.
I expect Mayors get to to do all sorts of things officially that they may question privately.
Agree with ppjs – and that’s an unnecessarily spiteful comment Tim Hunt
Agree with ppjs – and that’s an unnecessarily harsh comment Tim Hunt. The mayor has civic duties to perform, and in this case we have two long established retailers consolidating from two units to one, preserving some jobs. One cannot simply condemn ALL retail as ‘unnecessary consumerism’: e.g. for instance people moving into a new house will need furniture, and need to look at/test in a showroom. For people in Abingdon it’s better to do this here if possible rather than to travel unnecessarily elsewhere.
I am a Viney, Suzanna Viney, my father is 90 years old, Richard Viney, he lived in Ock Street as a boy whilst his mother held the shop together. When he was 19, after National Service, he trained at Harrods for a year in their furniture dept, then returned to Abingdon and completely revamped the show Chelsea style.. He then went on to found Abingdon Carpets in the 1979s with his elder brother, John, and they passed over the furniture store to his nephew Nicky, who I believe continued the success of it. I was brought up with all the post war Zeal for Success & Consumerism, but I too found my way away from consumerism, my partner and I are much more eco conscious and buy most of our things preloved. Vineys was never my style when I went in there we were much more into antiques in my part of the family. However I admire Nicky’s zeal but I do think it’s sad that Vineys have come to the end of this era. I knew we were an old Abingdonian family but not the oldest retailers. The Good thing is to know that life continues and consciousness and awareness of our environment is now mainstream.. maybe not even a couple of years ago when this was written. I will copy this photo as I hadn’t seen it before and message my 90 year old Dad with it! Yes the good thing is that employees have saved their jobs.. what would I do if I had inherited the business.. I’d return to local carpenters using local renewable wood. Also have an antiques dept. sourced locally, no man made or foreign travelled materials..