Lakeland to celebrate 40 years in Chester with tea-party and free gifts

In 1979 the city was the company’s first venture into the high street – a tiny little shop tucked away on the top level of the Rows.

Brothers Sam, Julian and Martin Rayner fitted out the store themselves with a helping hand from the team.

Overnight accommodation was limited to sleeping bags on the top floor but they rewarded themselves for a hard day’s work with a hearty meal at a nearby Italian restaurant.

This May Bank Holiday will see the company, which specialises in cooking, baking, cleaning and laundry, celebrate the 40th anniversary of their store in Chester.

And staff are inviting customers to celebrate in their Northgate Street venue along with colleagues old and new from Friday, May 24 through until Monday, May 27.

People can expect to enjoy an in-store tea party with cakes, coffee, cupcake decorating and demonstrations and a huge five-foot cake.

Whilst stocks last customers can also take advantage of a free gift with any purchase over £20.

Lakeland was originally founded by Alan Rayner, who started out selling plastic bags to farmers.

From the garage of his home in Windermere, he and his wife Dorothy set up a mail order business supplying agricultural plastics and home-freezing products and their then young sons – Sam, Julian and Martin – were roped in to count the bags into packs of 100.

The three brothers took over the business when Alan retired in 1974, following their father’s philosophy of ‘always look after the customer and the business will look after itself’.

Throughout the 70s and 80s Lakeland quickly established themselves as Home Freezing experts, providing customers with everything they needed to freeze, cook and then microwave at home.

They even ran their ‘Home Freezing Advisory Service’ complete with a 20-minute film that could be rented out by schools, WI groups and other organisations to learn everything they needed to successfully freeze at home.