The History of Alsford, Part 6 – bringing the timber trade into the 21st century

From humble origins, Alsford has grown and grown. Started as a one-man operation run from a single site in 1882, Alsford Timber today employees 200 members of staff in 18 branches across London, Kent, Surrey and Sussex.

In the 130 years that we’ve been trading, the timber industry has changed significantly – from the way timber is bought, to the way it’s processed, to the way it’s sold and used. Our company has had to adapt to accommodate – and sometimes lead – those changes. Throughout all the years though, the one thing that hasn’t changed is our commitment to our original core values of quality products, expert knowledge and depth of range.

Alsford Quality

Alsford Timber has always been synonymous with top quality wood. Keen to maintain this reputation, we invested £1m in a new production mill at our site in Erith.

Opened in 2014, the mill has enabled us to bring the production of many of our products back in-house, giving us greater control over both quality and range.

For us, quality is about more than just our products, it’s also about our service. This is why we invested £1.5m to upgrade our vehicle fleet in 2015. As important as increasing our capacity was choosing an environmentally-responsible vehicle supplier, and investing in driver training to make sure that the professionalism of our staff matches the quality of our vehicles.

Expert knowledge

When Alsford Timber first began, it was a point of principle that everyone – family members included – had to work their way up through the business, learning the timber trade inside out.

While today it’s no longer practical for everyone to start out on the shop floor, it’s still absolutely essential that each and every employee really does understand the trade. We’re immensely proud of our reputation as The Timber Experts, and we invest heavily in making sure we live up to our name.

That’s why we launched our very own on-site Alsford Timber training academy in 2015. The academy allows us to deliver bespoke training courses with an emphasis on wood science and timber technical knowledge that hadn’t been available before. And of course everyone – from our managing director to our valued apprentices – is expected to complete (and pass!) those courses.

Depth of range

Our product range is second to none, both in terms of the types of timber and the variety of products that we offer.

We’re proud to be the only timber merchant in the UK that offers three quality grades of planed timber: Premier, Standard and Contract grade.

In 2014 we established My Fencing Direct to meet the growing demand for bespoke garden products. Although it’s a separate company, it’s still very much part of the Alsford Timber family, with the desire to provide top quality products and service at its core.

There have been many developments at Alsford Timber in recent years, but our dedication to quality and excellence has never wavered. It’s this commitment that we believe will enable us to continue to grow and maintain our position as the best timber merchant in the South East for another 130 years.

Please click here to read an overview of our Company’s History.

Please click here to read Part 5.