Former staff set up own businesses.
Hampshire retailer Calcutt & Sons – famous for its traditional saddlery, hunting supplies and polo equipment – has shut up shop for the last time.
Ian Compton, the well-known ‘face’ of the Sutton Scotney based business since it started 62 years ago, blames changing consumer demand.
“The public and [their use of] the internet has driven us to it,” he told ETN. “And the riding public has changed too.
“Until recently, we made all our own bridlework. But they’re not interested in quality, they want fancy brands and bling.”
Ian is to continue with the Henry Keat hunting horn business. He can still supply hunt buttons too, which he gets engraved locally.
Calcutts’ saddlers are also starting their own businesses. Chris Ross, who worked there since 1973, is offering bespoke leatherwork and repair services. “He’s even taken his saddler’s work bench home because he’s so used to working on it,” said Ian.
Lesley Ralph, who also occupied a workshop at Calcutts, specialises in riding boots.
“It was an institution”
Anyone who ever visited Calcutt & Sons never forgot the experience.
Its vast range of hunting clothing catered for bespoke and off-the-peg needs. Garments were shipped all over the world; heavyweight hunt coats and woollen breeches even went to the West Indies.
Calcutts was the distributor for Henry Keat hunting horns as well as being the largest supplier of hunt buttons in Britain.
Ian Compton and his team were also great innovators, developing a best-selling collection of polo equipment including a new generation of helmets. A carbon fibre tree for polo saddles was another of their projects.
Unfortunately, Ian told ETN, the polo market has shrunk considerably since its heyday in the 1980 and 90s. “Of course, the Argentinians disappeared and then it became more elitist,” he explained.
“We had good times…but it had to come to an end”
Following the closure of Calcutts’ shop, it’s rumoured the site will be sold for redevelopment, possibly housing.
The news has saddened customers, both locally and those who made an annual pilgrimage before each hunting or polo season.
“We’ve had such good times,” says Ian, “so closing has been so sad and the end of an era. I’ve had customers in here really crying. One woman said she first came to the shop as a five-year-old and now she’s nearly 70.”
Ian cites a drop in overall turnover as contributing to Calcutts’ demise.
“In 1980 we had just one showroom,” he said. “Then, in the early 1990s, we extended the shop upstairs to make it into 2,000 sq ft. That cost £75,000 at the time – and we paid for it out of working capital.
“That gives you an idea of how much things have changed. It had to come to an end.”
Famous customers
Ian is discreet about the rich and famous international clientele he has met over the years through Calcutts.
However, he said he was touched by a recent visit from former world champion event rider and regular customer Lucinda Green.
“She heard we were closing and popped in with a card to thank the staff and a bottle of champagne,” he said.
Ian has had a mammoth task of clearing the store and says he still has “hundreds” of second-hand saddles to dispose of.
He also came across the prototype of a stall rug made around 35 years ago for horse-whisperer Monty Roberts who wanted it for training racehorses to walk calmly into starting stalls. It’s been donated to trainer Ray Beckett.
Hunting horns and hunt buttons
Enquiries about Henry Keat hand-made hunting horns or hunt buttons should be made to Ian Compton on tel 01962 774476.
