fbpx

This month marks another major milestone for Gardinia as a company. 40 years ago back in April 1983 Gardinia was founded by company chairman Michael Foster at the Ringway Industrial Estate in Huddersfield. Gardinia has continuously traded since then, making us Huddersfield’s longest established window company!

Within a year Gardinia had moved to our prominent site at 3 Leeds Road, Huddersfield, where the company is still located to this day.

Gardinia’s first “milestone” contract came in 1984 when we installed thermal-efficient windows at the West Yorkshire Ambulance Service control centre at Birkenshaw. Other notable projects have included Buxton House flats in Huddersfield, along with the much-acclaimed Round House, near Castle Hill, firmly establishing the company as offering Quality, Value and Service which has carried though the company for the last four decades.

I thought this milestone would be a great opportunity to share some old photos from the Gardinia archives, have a browse though the collection of photos I’ve managed to collect below, these are sorted by year where possible.

40 Years of Gardinia Windows In Photos:

The Gardinia Team though the ages:

The Gardinia team around 1985 (notice the 5 digit phone number!)

Can you spot anyone in the photo below from the early 90s still at Gardinia today? (hint: you are looking for four people!)

The Gardinia team in the early 90s
The Gardinia team on 10th October 1996
Celebrating 25 Years of Gardinia (photo taken on 5th March 2008)
The Gardinia Christmas / New Year meal in January 2012, we bumped in to Richard Thorp who played Alan Turner in Emmerdale at Da Sandros
Celebrating 30 years of Gardinia Windows in April 2013
Christmas 2019 – The snowman the Gardinia team built for the Piazza Centre in Huddersfield

Below we have some photos from the Gardinia archives over the years:

Company Chairman Mick Foster in the 80’s, the wood on his desk has never been seen since!
An old Gardinia promotional flyer from the late 80s, can you spot our much younger Darren? who is now our operations manager!
Mick Foster with the Royds Hall Ladies Football Team, a team Gardinia used to sponsor.
Steve Halstead in Germany on a Gardinia company trip in the 80s, believed to be 1986 or 1987
Mick Foster in Germany on a Gardinia company trip in the 80s, believed to be 1986 or 1987
Gardinia’s general manager Allan Hinchliffe and Stephen Halstead in the early 90s
Now sales manager Mark Wheelwright and Mick Foster in the 90’s
Allan, Mick, Mark & Trevor in the 90s
Happy Gardinia customers and Mark Wheelwright in the 90s
Craig Tomlinson working in our old factory, which is now the Upvc Spares 4 Repairs department run by Craig.
Mick Foster in the 2000s
Mark Wheelwright in the 2000s
Mick Butterfield in the 2000s
Stephen Halstead giving a talk on “L Day” April 1st 2002
Steve possibly auditioning for the next Rocky movie and Mick looking rather amused at “L Day” on April 1st 2002
Judith, Mick and Allan – Company photo for 25 years of Gardinia in 2008
Mick about to deliver an emotional retirement speech for Steve in 2015
Mick Foster promoting Upvc Spares 4 Repairs on Christmas Jumper Day 2016
Mick Foster representing Upvc Spares 4 Repairs with Patlock Ltd at the MLA Expo in 2017
Mick ready for his interview with the Virgin Media video team, who came to film a promotional video with Gardinia on how Upvc Spares 4 Repairs was making great use of their broadband internet in early 2018
A sneaky behind the scenes photo taken on the video day with Virgin Media
To celebrate the launch of Examiner Live in 2018, the Huddersfield Examiner delivered some delicious buns for us
Gardinia's Dawn Crum, the winner Graeme Wilson and Gardinia's Allan Hinchliffe presenting the prizes.
Presenting the Winners Trophy at Lindley Bowling Club in 2019. Gardinia’s Dawn Crum, the winner Graeme Wilson and Gardinia’s Allan Hinchliffe.
Our fitting team at a health and safety training day in 2019
2019 was a great year to be a spider, our showroom got quite an infestation!
The spiders did promise to be nice to any children who entered our showroom however!
The current building signage getting delivered in early 2021, with the old signage visible in the background background
Our new service vans, styled in the new company house style in 2021

Then and Now:

I also managed to dig up some old photos showcasing our showroom, so have compared them to today in 2023:

Gardinia showroom in the 1990s and now in 2023
Front area of the showroom in the late 90s / early 2000s and now in 2023
Middle area of the showroom in the late 90s / early 2000s and now in 2023
Back area of the showroom in the late 90s / early 2000s and now in 2023
The Gardinia factory in the late 90s / early 2000s, now the Upvc Spares 4 Repairs warehouse in 2023, you can see the same wooden wall to the left still exists today.

It would appear I also published a blog post 10 years ago which might also be interesting to look back on: Celebrating 30 years of Gardinia Windows – doesn’t time fly?!

So what is next for Gardinia? Our Upvc Spares 4 Repairs trade counter and ecommerce website keeps growing, despite making better use of space we are realistically going to require a larger warehouse eventually if our range of products keeps expanding, so who knows what the future holds?!

Hopefully you have enjoyed looking at some Gardinia company history from the last 40 years!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Fill out this field
Fill out this field
Please enter a valid email address.

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.