Furniture Village is a British

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

 furniture

Furniture

Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...

 retailer

Retailing

Retail consists of the sale of physical goods or merchandise from a fixed location, such as a department store, boutique or kiosk, or by mail, in small or individual lots for direct consumption by the purchaser. Retailing may include subordinated services, such as delivery. Purchasers may be...

. It has over 36 stores throughout the United Kingdom, the first of which was opened in Abingdon

Abingdon, Oxfordshire

Abingdon or archaically Abingdon-on-Thames is a market town and civil parish in Oxfordshire, England. It is the seat of the Vale of White Horse district. Previously the county town of Berkshire, Abingdon is one of several places that claim to be Britain's oldest continuously occupied town, with...

. The company is headquartered in Slough

Slough

Slough is a borough and unitary authority within the ceremonial county of Royal Berkshire, England. The town straddles the A4 Bath Road and the Great Western Main Line, west of central London...

.
This is the largest privately-owned furniture chain in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. Their target market is the upper end of the price range for the moderately rich. Their advertising has attempted to establish quality, rather than price, as the distinguishing point from competitors DFS

Dfs (retailer)

DFS, formerly Doncaster Furnishing Stores, is a national furniture retailer in the United Kingdom which specialises in sofas and soft furnishings. It serves the lower end of the furniture market and offers credit terms on its goods.- History :...

 and Courts

Courts Plc

Courts is a retailer of furniture and electronic goods with stores in the Caribbean and Asia. It was originally founded in 1850 in the United Kingdom. It was known for an advertising campaign in the 1980s and 1990s that featured Bruce Forsyth dressed as a judge . After this it advertised with a...

.

History

The company was established in 1989 by Peter Harrison and David Imrie in partnership with Cadogan Estates

Cadogan Estates

Cadogan Estates Ltd is a property company owned by the Earl Cadogan, one of the richest families in the United Kingdom. It is the main landlord in the central London districts of Chelsea and Knightsbridge, and is now the second largest of the surviving aristocratic freehold estates in central...

. Cadogan Estates sold its 70% stake in the chain to its management, led by Peter Harrison, in December 2001. In August 2002, Furniture Village bought three Conroys stores from the administrators to give it a presence in North East England

North East England

North East England is one of the nine official regions of England. It covers Northumberland, County Durham, Tyne and Wear, and Teesside . The only cities in the region are Durham, Newcastle upon Tyne and Sunderland...

. Also in 2002, the company launched an upmarket retail brand, the London Furniture Company, but this was unsuccessful and closed in 2005.

Awards

Furniture Village has won trade magazine Cabinet Maker's awards for small, medium and large retailer of the year. It won the National Interiors Retailer of the Year award for 2007.