Shop Front: Le Creuset, High Street

Published on: 7 Sep, 2015
Updated on: 7 Sep, 2015

The new Le Creuset shop at 134 Guildford High Street

The Le Creuset shop is a recent arrival on Guildford High Street. It opened in early July, just up from the Guildhall, taking over premises previously occupied by Crabtree & Evelyn.

Other Le Creuset stores operate mainly in the UK’s cities, London, Belfast, Glasgow and Leeds as well as some more affluent towns including Windsor and Solihull. The next new Le Creuset shop is expected to open in Cambridge.

Other Guildford shops, such as Steamer Trading, will continue to sell Le Creuset at similar prices but only the Le Creuset shop will stock the full range of items and colours.

Staff at the store receive specific training on Le Creuset products and spend a day cooking. During the day Le Creuset cookware, with its fast heating and heat retaining qualities, and competitor products are compared.

The new store stocks the full range of Le Creuset products.

Store manager Mandy Bramley is from Ash and has worked in other Guildford stores. She says that she understands the Guildford shoppers, mostly Guildfordians during the week and from further afield at weekends, and recognises what the Guildford customers need.

She said: “Le Creuset is great for kitchens of all styles. Every piece of our traditional cookware is made to the highest standards and the cast iron products are still handmade.

“Each month there will be a new offer on selected products.

“Food tasting events will be coming up in the future, on Saturdays. At the moment we are concentrating on baking but as we get into winter we will be demonstrating the cooking of warming foods including: soups, bread and rice based dishes. Oh, and we also have a wedding gift registry.

“I hope Guildford Dragon NEWS readers come in and have a browse. They will be surprised at the extensive range we have to offer.”

Le Creuset shop opening hours:

Monday to Friday: 10am – 6pm
Saturday: 9am – 6pm
Sunday: 11am – 5pm

The famous French cookware company was founded in the French town of Fresnoy-le-Grand, Aisne, Picardy, a strategic location at the crossroads of transportation routes for commodities essential to their production process: iron, coke and sand.

Casting specialist Armand Desaegher and enamelling specialist Octave Aubecq opened their foundry in 1925. That same year, the first cocotte (or French oven) was produced. The onset of the Second World War war brought troubled times as the foundry was close to front lines and occupied by German forces.

After the war, contrary to its competitors, Le Creuset concentrated on its range of enamelled cast iron cookware and was a major innovator of the time producing new styles and designs. Originality was shown in the creation of enamel colours.

Le Creuset UK, based in Andover, started in 1948 and by 2012 their turnover was £64.5 million.