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It was February 1988 when visiting Amsterdam with my good friend Andy Lloyd that I had my first encounter with antique carpets. A visit to a friend's plush apartment in the city, its walls adorned with beautiful early Turkman carpets, floors, and seating strewn with tribal bags and trappings. I immediately felt myself drawn to their magical colours, intricate and mysterious designs, and wonderful tactile qualities, so began my love affair with these beautiful objects. I started to read all I could on the subject and quickly became hooked on them.
In 1989, I became redundant at Imperial Tobacco as the chemistry laboratory I had worked in for the 5 years since leaving school closed. It was at this point that I, together with Andy, decided to try our hand at full-time carpet dealing. At the tender age of just 21, we put around £1500 each in our new business account and headed back to Amsterdam, where we purchased various old rugs from friends and dealers around the city. We hired a stand at Baths’ Guinea Lane Antiques market that was open on Wednesday mornings to service the then-thriving antiques trade. These were very exciting times for us, just boys really, with our whole lives ahead of us.
As our passion and knowledge snowballed, so did our client list, which, back then, was mainly antique shop owners and other, more established dealers. After two years, we moved to the Great Western Antique Centre in Bath, which opened six days a week. There we joined forces with ex-restorer and enthusiast Owen Parry. Here our client list was extended to include private people, mainly from Bath and surrounding areas, who wished to furnish their homes with our unique and beautiful rugs. We exhibited at all manner of antique fairs and markets in the area and continued to flourish. In 1997, a good client of ours, Brian Dennis, retired and offered us the keys to his shop on Walcot Street, Bath. We had supplied his business with hundreds of rugs in the past, so he had a good idea of what was selling. We jumped at the chance, and Haliden Oriental Carpets became ours.
It was around this time that the internet was born, an event that would change the world forever. Thanks to my quick-thinking father, the Haliden website was registered in 1998 and is now probably the UK's oldest website dedicated to antique carpets. This was to become paramount in putting the business on the world stage, particularly in America.
After exhibiting at the American Conference on Oriental Rugs (ACOR), the Los Angeles and San Francisco Tribal Arts shows, along with the prestigious Hali Fair in London, Haliden became well-known with dealers, collectors, and decorators all over the world. We met many clients at these events and are very proud to have placed top pieces in many of the world’s greatest collections.
In March 2020, Covid-19 arrived in the UK, and with the ensuing lockdowns, we had plenty of time to reflect on the business and consider the future. It was at this point, after more than 25 years in the shop and with Andy and myself now in our late 50s, that we decided to close that part of the business and go our separate ways, thus enabling us to spend more time with family and pursue the things we love, in my case, fishing and walking.
I have kept the business going and now offer around 250 antique rugs, carpets, and runners in a small, purpose-built space at my home here in the beautiful seaside town of Clevedon, just a few miles south of Bristol. Just a few minutes from the M5 motorway, the town has an abundance of nice restaurants and pubs, offers some lovely walking, and is home to a grade one listed Victorian pier and Europe’s oldest cinema among countless other attractions. I would like to extend a warm invitation to anyone who wishes to visit me here in my hometown; alternatively, I am more than happy to bring selected pieces to view in situ at any property here in the UK.
As previously mentioned, my father, a retired research chemist, designed and wrote a website for us way back when most people hadn’t even heard of the internet. I remember well, staring at a blurry image of a rug, the words Haliden Oriental Carpets appearing above it on a screen the size of a car! I tried not to laugh as he told me that it was going to change the world and that much of the world’s commerce would be soon conducted over the World Wide Web. Well, he was right, and we soon started to sell things all over the globe via the site. Within a few years, internet sales were to overtake sales made in the shop.
Thanks to my father’s foresight, Haliden has enjoyed a good Google ranking. The website you see today bears little resemblance to the early ones; it has evolved greatly. Today's site is much more sophisticated and has to work on various browsers and devices and dozens of different screen sizes. I am deeply indebted to my father for his vision and his hard work. Now in his 81st year, but still spending countless hours coding and problem-solving for Haliden..
We hope you enjoy using the site. If you encounter any problems, care to comment or make any suggestions, we would love to hear from you.