FAMILY-run jewellers Nigel Pearce and Son are ringing in some changes for 2009.
The business is not only moving location in the New Year – from the Central Market to the corner of Bond Street – but is also changing its name, to Thaddeus Jewellers. The new shop, which opened in time for Christmas week, provides much more space than the market shop and has a workshop upstairs, where new pieces can be created and repairs carried out.
Thaddeus Pearce (33), the new shop’s namesake, has been working with his father, Nigel, since he was 17 and has a degree in jewellery design from Kent Institute of Art and Design. He explained that despite the looming recession, their plans to expand the business had not changed. ‘We are not starting again, we are relocating what is a good business anyway,’ he said.
‘We have been 11 years in the Central Market and there are five people working in the shop now, so it was jam-packed. We needed something a bit bigger and this shop in Bond Street came up. I honestly think a lot of people don’t even know about us. I’m not saying we are expensive, but being in the Central Market, people get the impression that things are cheap.’
• Picture: Thaddeus Pearce outside the new shop on the corner of Bond Street, which has more space than the Central Market premises. Picture by Jon Guegan (00608530)
