Past and present combine to offer Thorns Group a stunning future

Thorns Group’s market-leading position in the events, exhibitions and conference sectors has been achieved during a history stretching back more than five decades.

From humble beginnings as a small-scale catering equipment supplier in the 1950s, we have diversified to hold a stock of more than a million items, with offices in London, Manchester and Birmingham. Our success has meant that all three of our regional operations have relocated to new, larger premises during recent years.

As well as supplying furniture and catering equipment, our services now extend to the supply of items such as bespoke furnishings, specialist lighting and high-tech plasma screens.

Our origins date back to a decision by Tottenham businessman Albert Thorn to establish a furniture and catering equipment hire venture as a sideline to his already successful hardware store and to the well-established grocery business run by his wife Doris.

The couple’s new business – Thorns Furniture and Catering Hire – was initially forced to store its equipment in a number of buildings across Tottenham, with younger members of the Thorn family and their schoolfriends recruited to help out with deliveries at weekends.

Despite being sold by Albert and Doris some years ago, the business still employs three members of the Thorn family. And the business continues to place the same emphasis on customer satisfaction – and on attaching equal importance to all contracts, no matter how large or small.

Through considerable investment we have been able to enlarge and update our stock, while rival hire businesses have been bought out. As well as new items of equipment – including large quantities of furniture, china, cutlery, glassware, silverware and linen – we have invested in new fleets of vehicles and in improved computer and storage systems. We have also managed to strengthen our staff by attracting many of the best people working in the events and exhibitions industries.

The years of improvements and expansion have seen us transformed into Thorns Group, which now features Thorns Furniture and Catering Hire as just one of our four operating divisions. The other businesses within our group are Camden Special Events, which is a major provider of furniture, equipment and know-how to sporting and hospitality events, Camden Exhibition Services, which supplies a full range of furniture and other services to the exhibitions market, and Classic Technical Services, which is a market-leading supplier of electrical and specialist lighting services.

As well as housing our four divisions in a state-of-the-art headquarters in Brantwood Road, Tottenham, we also extend our geographical reach via offices in Manchester and Birmingham.

Small-scale celebrations, such as weddings and family gatherings, remain an important part of our work, although we have regularly risen to the challenge of supplying equipment to many thousands of people at glittering award ceremonies or high-profile conferences and exhibitions. We have even been recognised on two separate occasions by Guinness World Records for supplying furniture and catering equipment to the world’s largest-ever silver-service meals – the most recent for no fewer than 11,500 people!