Tower and Town, April 2019

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Upton Leathercraft

Mrs Upton has been running her store on the Marlborough High Street for 57 years. She and her husband opened Leathercraft of Marlborough, based in Hughenden Yard, in 1962 and she has been running it ever since. They originally opened the store intending for it to be a saddlery, as Mr Upton had just lost his job and Mrs Upton had always been interested in horses. In fact, her son has only just left his long-time job at a racing yard! However, saddle-making didn’t take off, maybe because the saddle industry is already a very prestigious one, so they decided instead to turn it into a leather store, which was and still is more successful. Mr Upton stopped working at the store soon after, as he much preferred the creative arts, such as sculpture, painting and writing - mainly about falconry. Mrs Upton still enjoys her job very much.

Leathercraft of Marlborough has many customers, some local and some from further afield including visitors from abroad. “A trip to Marlborough isn’t complete without visiting this shop!” is a compliment voiced by many. Mrs Upton receives a fairly steady inflow of customers, although trade has gone down somewhat since she first opened the shop. “Marlborough is a good location,” she told us.

She sources her leather from a number of places, including Denmark, Italy and France, as well as locally. For this reason, she is slightly worried for Brexit, but thankfully the Danish and French companies have warehouses in England.

We asked her if she had any funny stories about her career and she said that whenever famous people come to her shop, she doesn’t realise since she does not watch television, so she has no idea who these people are!

Saffron Rowell and Samantha Pickering